Pin Up Boy
by Sevandor1
Summary: He's been Metrocity's Defender for four years, but now Megamind faces his newest and most terrifying challenge: being the photoshoot subject of a celebrity calendar for charity.  Now complete!
1. Negotiations

Disclaimer: This is original non-profit fan work, intended solely for the entertainment of the readers, and in no way intends any infringement on any copyrights, trademarks, or licenses held by Dreamworks Animation SKG, Alan Schoolcroft, Brent Simons, or the holders of any other legal rights or licenses pertaining to Megamind.

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><p><em>Author's Note: Yes, this is the start of a new story, but no, I'm not stopping work on <span>Legacy<span>; that's continuing right along with this. But as folks know, Real Life is extremely stressful for me right now and will continue to be so for a while, and I felt that I should work on something a little more lighthearted and humorous, just to have something happier to work on when I'm starting to feel down. The idea for this came from a scribble of a drawing I did as practice for my iPad's new painting app back during the LiveJournal community's "Beat the Heat" theme weeks in late July/early August. It seemed like it could provide a laugh, so why not? Because there's really only one thread of a plot to the tale, it's not likely to be very long, but I hope it provides some chuckles to my readers. Enjoy!_

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><p>Pin-Up Boy<br>Chapter One: Negotiations

"This is _the_ most embarrassing thing anyone has _ever_ asked me to do, and I am _not _going to do it!"

"But sir, it's for a good cause! All proceeds are going to the Police and Firefighter's Emergency Fund, and that mentoring program for abused kids that was set up just because you thought it would be a good idea."

"Then I'll give them as much money as they were hoping to raise out of my own pocket, but I am not, I repeat _not _doing this! It's demeaning, it's degrading, it's positively humiliating...!"

"Is this argument over the calendar?"

The interrupting question came from Roxanne as she climbed out of her car on the Lair's garage level, home from work. Megamind, in his full hero-at-work regalia, had returned from a meeting with the Fire and Police Commission half an hour earlier, and he was now pacing back and forth across the floor in his idea area while Minion and two brainbots worked on sorting and folding the laundry. The blue genius paused his pacing only for a moment when he heard his wife's voice, which sounded entirely too amused for his comfort.

"How do you know about that?" he demanded. "I haven't given them any answer, and they have no right to go spreading it around as if my cooperation is already sewn up!"

Roxanne both sighed and smiled as she surrendered her coat, purse, laptop case, and other work things to Pinky and the other household brainbots who'd come to greet her. A pecking order had been established among them soon after Roxanne had moved into the Lair, an order which had been refined and reinforced after Daddy had made her officially Mommy by marrying her.

Only Pinky was allowed to touch Mommy's purse, the Female Repository of All Important Items. Little Nipper, one of Minion's sewing assistants who had the job of seeing to any repairs Mommy's clothing required, was to handle her coat, hat, or other items of outerwear, if she had worn any that day. Buck, the bot in charge of the routine daily maintenance of all of Daddy's leatherware from boots to belts and gloves, was allowed to deal with any boots, shoes, gloves, or other such items Mommy might want to be rid of as soon as she arrived. Byte and Bit, the pair of bots who handled the sorting, cataloguing, and storage of computer supplies and equipment around the Lair, had the honor of taking her electronic devices and her briefcase up to her home office. Thanks to the Lair's security system and regional monitors, the five brainbots always knew when Mommy's arrival was imminent, and like a group of happy puppies were always there to greet her. Their happiness might be short-lived if Mommy emerged from her car in a foul mood, but still, they always did their best to please her and hopefully soothe her riled spirits.

Today, Roxanne was in a good mood, so the bots were all cheerful in both their greetings and in carrying out their tasks for her. She gladly surrendered her various bags, shrugged out of the light coat that was suitable for the early fall weather, and was glad to let Buck take her shoes for her, since she preferred to get out of her work shoes as soon as possible, a mental signal that the work day was over. The cement floor of the garage was cold, so she signaled Pinky to bring back her slippers as she gingerly made her way to the area where Megamind and Minion were having their lively "discussion."

"Nobody told me anything specific," she assured her husband after giving him a kiss of greeting that only did so much to improve his mood, a sure sign that he was pretty agitated. "But it's that time of year again, when some of the local charities and service groups start putting together things to sell as fund raisers that can double as Christmas presents. You've been doing such a good job this last year, both as the Defender of Metro City and an advocate for the schools and mentoring programs, I'd heard some talk that the fundraising group that puts out the local celebrity calendars was thinking they'd ask you to do this year's main one for them. It's not anything bad, sweetie, it's actually a compliment. It means they've accepted you as someone people should be proud of and look up to. Heck, I did a calendar for them five or six years ago, and it was a blast. Haven't you ever seen it?"

When her husband instantly blushed a strikingly brilliant fuchsia from his neck up, Minion laughed. "Oh, yes, he's seen it," the ichthyoid answered while he continued sorting the laundry into different baskets as Fluff and Fold handed the items to him. "He bought at least a dozen copies of it — you couldn't go anywhere in the Lair without seeing one. I think he was particularly fond of July, August, October, and—"

"MINION!" the indignant and mortified hero shrieked quite unheroically even as Roxanne unsuccessfully tried not to laugh. "You _know _I told you that in strictest confidence!"

The robotized fish shrugged. "Actually, sir, you never _told _me, I just figured it out when you kept copies of those pictures all over the Lair — especially in your... ah... thinking places."

Megamind looked as if he was torn between melting to death ala the Wicked Witch of the West, or going for his partner-in-crimefighting's real throat. He appeared to be leaning toward the latter option when one hand twitched, causing all the retracted spikes on his outfit to pop out, gleaming dangerously in the overhead lights.

Moving quickly, Roxanne prevented things from escalating by jumping in front of her spouse, carefully slipping one arm around his neck (inside the batwing collar, to avoid the bristling spikes) while using her free hand to tug one of his arms around her waist, cautiously positioning it so that the small spikes on the glove would hit her wide leather belt rather than poke through the cloth of her dress to her skin. Oh, yes, she'd learned the wisdom of how to dress defensively as the wife of a superhero.

"Claws in, tiger," she suggested with a sly smile. "Minion isn't telling me anything I don't already know. You still have a few of those pictures lying around, and I've come across 'em, once or twice. I'm flattered, sweetie, really. When I made that calendar, I was afraid it wouldn't sell very well, which would've been even _more _embarrassing than anything I was asked to do during the photoshoot. You probably made sure _that_ didn't happen, all by yourself, buying all those copies." She kissed the tip of his nose. "And I'll admit, that photographer was good, he made me feel so relaxed that it was a lot of fun, even the shots that still make me blush when I think that I actually posed like that — and then let them publish the pictures in a calendar!"

Megamind relaxed just the tiniest bit, and politely retracted the spikes on his outfit to present less of a danger to his lady. "Really?" he squeaked. "You didn't feel... well, humiliated? Or _slooty?_"

She giggled, aware of what he was trying not to say in his deliberate mispronunciation, which came with a renewed flush across his cheeks. "Well, I did feel that way when the photographer first suggested some of the poses, but he made the whole thing a sort of game, and it felt really silly and fun while I was doing it. Afterwards, I was afraid that I'd made a huge mistake and would wind up looking like someone who belongs on the kinds of calendars you see hanging in fine garages and pool halls, but you've seen the pictures. Those three were suggestive and kind of playfully naughty, but nothing more than that. They weren't pornographic, or even all that sexy. It's all in the _mind_ of the beholder, not their eyes. A good photographer can do that, and it's all in fun."

Oddly enough, the fuchsia blush deepened. "_I _thought they were sexy," Megamind admitted in a tiny whisper, just loud enough for her to hear. "I still do."

Her smile widened with affection as she wrapped both arms around his neck — properly, now that the spikes were retracted — and gave him a deep, loving kiss. She could feel him relax even more as his arms went around her waist to pull her closer. Minion busied himself with directing Fluff and Fold to take two of the baskets to their proper rooms upstairs, then did a little sorting and folding of his own while he waited for them to return, whistling to distract himself from his amorous friends.

"Thank you," Roxanne said most sincerely when they came up for air. She knew that she wasn't the perfect specimen of feminine beauty that Megamind saw in her, but the fact that he _did_ see her that way never failed to make her feel as beautiful as he thought she was. "You are without a doubt the sweetest former supervillain in the universe. But it may surprise you to know, Mr. Incredibly Handsome, that there are a lot of women out there who actually agree with that title and think you're pretty hot stuff. I was just the lucky one who managed to get you all to myself."

The flattery brought a small, sheepish smile to his face, which was followed momentarily by puzzlement. "But then wouldn't it bother you if I did this, especially if some of the pictures turned out... well, a little like some of yours did?"

Her own smile turned impish. "I suppose if they tried to get you to do something that really qualified as pornographic and you went along with it and they published it, _that _would bother me, but stuff like they had in my calendar?" She blew a soft raspberry as she shook her head. "It wouldn't bother me at all. Other people might get to ogle a little more of your pretty blue skin in a more flattering light and get to see how handsome you really are, but they'll just get pictures, while _I _get the real thing. Let 'em eat their hearts out!"

That brought back his bright blush, but also caused the blue hero to bite his lower lip. "What if all it does is give people reasons to laugh at me?"

He didn't need to say more. Though there was no one in the world who could pull off a flamboyant, flashy, confident presentation better than Megamind, Roxanne understood that a lot of the flash and flair was designed to make people look at his clothes and his gadgetry and at most his face, not at the rest of him. He was all too aware that he was smaller and more slender than most Earth men, even when not measured against his disproportionately large head. The broad lower collar of his costume disguised the not so broad shoulders, the flowing cape made a more impressive — and harder to define — silhouette, the flaring upper collar somehow contrived to make him appear just a little taller than he actually was, spikes and studs and bright metals added an extra touch of danger and kept people from coming too close to get a better look. It was all a game of misdirection, smoke and mirrors, see this, not that, and between Minion's clever designs and Megamind's theatrical presentation, they had created a successful art out of making a man who was physically smaller than average be perceived as immensely larger than life.

Truthfully, Megamind didn't dislike his own appearance — not as he had when he was just a boy and desperately wanted to fit in — but he feared that if he did something like this celebrity calendar, something that was at least partially designed to draw attention to the body beneath the clothing, people would start to compare him to his very muscular predecessor and find him sorely wanting. If it would just be him taking the ridicule, he could live with it, but he hated how it might negatively affect Roxanne. He didn't want her to be taunted and teased over her choice of a husband any more than she'd already been.

But she wasn't the least bit worried. "If they do and I hear of it, they'll have to answer to both of us, not to mention the mayor and the emergency services and my network. You're a hero, you've been working your butt off for the last four years to make this city and a lot of the country a better place, and you've earned the right to be treated with respect. And if the calendar designers want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable for _any_ reason, just tell 'em the deal's off."

Megamind digested this for a bit. All of what she'd said was true, and he had to admit that the people who'd asked him to do this really hadn't said anything about any of the pictures _needing_ to be the least bit racy or suggestive. He just knew from the examples he'd been shown of previous years' releases that a little of that sort of thing was pretty much expected, a standard part of the gimmick. If Roxanne had asked him to do a whole set of pictures like that just for her, he'd have no problem doing whatever she liked, but though he had a strong streak of vanity, he was equally shy and insecure about some things. Things like this: exposing more of himself to the public than he generally did, not to go swimming or because the weather was unbearably hot or something of that nature, but to show off for perfect strangers in a way that he felt should only be for his wife's enjoyment.

In some very weird yet understandable ways, Megamind could seem like a bit of a prude, though Roxanne (and others who knew him fairly well) could see that it wasn't prudishness, but a startlingly genuine innocence hiding behind an ego still sore from the beating it had taken early in life. It was one of the things that made him adorable to her, despite his villainous past.

And as she gave him that fond look that saw all that he truly was, inside and out... _That_ was when his brilliant idea came to him. "Could _you _be the photographer? I wouldn't be nervous for _you _— much."

Roxanne blinked and gave a short laugh. "Me? Sweetie, I work in front of the cameras, not behind them."

"Yes, _now, _but you didn't always," he pointed out, warming to the idea. "And you're a brilliant photographer! Look at all the pictures you've taken when we've gone out of town to take time off, or when I'm in some big to-do and you're not covering it for work."

"Okay, they're not bad, but studio photography isn't the same..."

"Oh, pish-tosh!" he dismissed with an extravagant wave of both hands, becoming more animated as his excitement grew. "You know all about studio lighting and how it's set up — for that matter, so do I! We could set up a studio of our own right here, or we could go outside for some of it, do location shooting! You've done wonderful field photography — don't forget, that's what first brought us together, you scampering around the back alleys of Rustville and Gangland, trying to get pictures to prove I was a hoax! I've seen the shots you took that day before things went wrong, and they were marvelous!"

He spoke with such earnest and energetic enthusiasm, it was hard to disbelieve him. Even Minion chose to get into the act. "Oh, that's a wonderful idea, sir! You really are an excellent photographer, Mrs. Roxanne, I've always thought so, and you could even get Blinkie and some of the camerabots to help, if you wanted. They're great for catching unusual angles and freezing motion — and oh, if you needed help with things like set decoration, I could do that, I did it for Sir at least a hundred times over the years, preparing announcements to the city and setting the stage for some of Sir's more theatrical plans, stuff like that..."

"Minion, I haven't said I'd do it!" Roxanne protested. But glancing from the eager-to-help fish to her almost giddily excited husband, she didn't know how she'd manage to decline. "You're not going to let me say no, are you?" she asked her blue hero.

Megamind shook his head most emphatically. "Not a chance. If you won't, I won't, it's as simple as that. After all, _you_'re the one who thinks this is a good idea. _I_ still think the whole thing is more likely to blow up in my face, worse than my Typhoon Cheese project did on the first two hundred and ninety-nine tries! But I'm willing to at least give it a try — _if_ you'll be my photographer. Is that really asking too much? It's for charity, after all."

The way he batted his big green eyes ever-so-innocently with that sweetly beguiling smile that just screamed, "I _so _know how to push all your buttons!" was more than Roxanne could take. It didn't help one bit that Minion chimed in with, "Oh, _pleeeeze, _Mrs. Roxanne, say you'll do it! It'll be so much fun!" From the corner of her eye, she could see the fish's big golden-brown eyes giving her the exact same look, though his huge toothy smile was more ingenuous and would've been just a tad more disturbing, if it hadn't been on Minion.

She sighed, the length of the exhalation all out of proportion to the capacity of any human lungs. "Let me talk to the people setting this up," she said, half-surrendering. "And then let me talk to my boss to see if I can get some time off to do it. The network owes me for turning our summer trip to London into me covering for their foreign correspondent, not just covering your visit with the Queen. Especially since Hank's 'injury' was a broken nose he got in a drunken brawl _he_ started in a pub over a soccer match! If they both say it's okay and we can get all the right equipment, I guess I can give it a try."

Megamind clapped his hands together in glee before picking her up to twirl her about, then giving her a big thank-you kiss. "I'll make sure you have everything you need, just tell me what you want!" he promised happily. "With anyone else, I just wouldn't feel comfortable, but with you, it'll be _so _much fun! If I come up with any ideas, should I tell you, or do you want to do this all yourself? Will Minion and Blinkie be enough in the way of assistants? What kind of cameras and lighting equipment do you want? We already have a lot left over from the old evil days, but I can get you anything else you might want, newer, better, more sophisticated! Oh, and I suppose Minion's right about needing appropriate set decorations — and wardrobe!" He thrust one arm out, pointing dramatically to his piscine partner. "Minion! How could you forget that we'll need appropriate wardrobe? We—"

Roxanne giggled as she put one hand over his mouth, stilling him. "Relax, sweetie, I'm sure Minion didn't forget, and remember, it's still not definite. The fundraising group may already have signed contracts with professional photographers that they can't back out of, I still have to work out a time with Jack, and it might not be soon enough to meet the deadline for printing to release the calendar for this year."

Her very reasonable points left her husband looking positively crestfallen. "But it _has _to work out!" he insisted, his excitement suddenly crumbling back into nervous worry. "I — I couldn't do this for anyone but you, Roxanne. It know it's absurd, me, the Defender of Metrocity, a perfect subject for every camera known to Man..."

"You've never met one you couldn't cozy up to, that's for sure," she chuckled, as aware as he was that when the cameras were on, the ham inside him couldn't help but burst out.

But the way he looked at her right now, she was also aware that his inner ham was really the lonely little boy still inside him, desperate for attention and love. Even now, after years of acceptance by an ever-growing circle of supporters and fans and admirers, there was always a part of him that feared rejection, waiting for the inevitable time when he would be kicked in the face, laughed at, and told to slink back into the gutter where he belonged. He'd been quietly working with the prison therapist who had become his friend, trying to lay some of those powerful demons to rest, but even Phil DeVries admitted that some aspects of Mykaal's early life trauma might never be wholly resolved. The fears and the anger no longer ruled his life as they had during his years as a villain, but their ghosts still haunted him at times.

Like now, when he was being asked to put himself on display in a way he'd never done before. It wasn't really the possibility of having a few mildly suggestive fun photos taken of him that had him shaking in his boots; lord knew there were enough mortifying pictures of him plastered all over the Internet, taken by people who'd caught him at the beach with Roxanne or in some totally embarrassing moment while he was out on patrol or in combat. It was the gamble of presenting this small collection of photos all about him to a public who might reject him simply by refusing to buy it, never mind the bigots who _would _buy the calendar just to twist its images to their own ugly purposes. Roxanne understood both worries, and couldn't help but sympathize.

She caressed his face with a loving, soothing touch. "But you're afraid people won't like it no matter _who_ takes the pictures," she finished for him. "So you need to have someone you trust implicitly taking the shots and making sure that nothing embarrassing slips through and gets printed, that you're presented in the best light possible. I understand, Mykaal, really I do. I felt the same way about my calendar shoot, and I didn't have some of your issues to deal with. I think maybe you're right, I _should _do this. It's good for me to remind my bosses that I have other talents, and it's good for you to take a step or two outside your usual comfort zone, just to prove to yourself that most people do like you. If I can help make it easier for you do that, I should. So I'll talk to the fundraisers tomorrow, tell them this is a condition of your agreement, and that you'll keep final approval of anything that goes to print or it's no deal. And I'll find a way to make Jack feel like a total heel if he doesn't give me the time off when I want it!"

Megamind's nervous worry diminished; his sadly sagged shoulders lifted as the light returned to his eyes. "You'd do that for me?" he said quietly, not doubting that she would, but loving her for all her understanding and her willingness to help him deal with these damnable insecurities that seemed impossible for him to completely overcome.

And she understood that as well. "I'd do anything for you, love, you know that." It was gratifying to her to see the spark of delight reignite within him. "And since this'll be good for _both_ of us, I'm doing it for me, too. Minion's the only one who won't be getting anything out of it," she added with a teasing lilt that brought the happy grin back to her hero's face, and got a laugh from the fish in question.

"Oh, I'll get something from it, too, Mrs. Roxanne," Minion assured her most cheerfully. "The people at the Ichthyological Society have said things to me about wanting to do something like this for a fund raiser next year, so this'll give me a chance to see what kind of problems there might be so I can avoid them!"

And so what Roxanne would privately come to think of as Project Pin-Up Boy began.

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><p><em>To be continued...<em>


	2. Setting the Stage

_Author's Note: This coming Wednesday, my husband will be going in for the surgery to remove his cancer, so needless to say, I'm likely to be rather busy with preparations and worrying and may not get much of anything creative finished for a while. I do intend to keep working on this and "Legacy" as circumstances and the Muse allow, but I did want to warn everyone that if there are longer than usual gaps between postings, it's because of Real Life, not because I've abandoned these stories._

_Thanks ever so much to all who have read, reviewed, and enjoyed this and my other tales, and a special thank you to those who have kept us in their thoughts and prayers. It's always a comfort to know that when life seems too difficult and frightening to bear, there are kind souls out in the world whose caring helps to lighten the load. Bless you all._

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><p>Chapter Two<br>Setting the Stage

The brainbots had gotten jumpy.

Minion didn't know why. He'd been happily at work in the no-longer-fake observatory dome on the roof of the Lair for most of the morning. Not that it was precisely a real observatory, these days, but to a casual observer it certainly looked like one, finished and functional, not a ramshackle imitation. Currently, it was being used as a convenient hangar for the hover bikes, which came and went invisibly. To outside eyes and public records, the "observatory" was home to the Lake Michigan Sky Watchers Society, the bogus cover group of UFO fanatics that Megamind had very cleverly created to be the official but generally absentee "owners" of the observatory, the long-since abandoned power plant on which it was mounted, and a considerable amount of the surrounding neighborhood. The big, open space under the dome was one of the least cluttered parts of the working Lair, a perfect place for Minion to do the job of sorting through all their old lighting and camera equipment, looking for what could be used for the coming photoshoot and what needed to be replaced. He was singing to himself as he tried to untangle a rat's nest of power cables when he suddenly found himself besieged by a dozen or more frantic brainbots, obviously trying to hide from something.

They were all household bots, not patrol or rescue bots, so at least the ichthyoid knew that whatever had them riled up wasn't some kind of emergency requiring the city's Defender or his partner. "What is it?" Minion demanded when the bots refused to settle down. "Is Shredder hoarding the wrenches again? Does the Brain think it's time to refinish the floors again? Has Sir set the volume on his guitar amp to 'shatter glass?' No, I'd be feeling the roof starting to crumble under my feet if he'd done that. Oh gosh — is Sir trying to make lunch by himself?"

That last thought was rather terrifying to Minion, not because Megamind couldn't make a meal without burning down the kitchen and the rest of the Lair, but because the last time he'd done so, he'd left such a godawful mess in the kitchen that Madeleine, Minion's kitchen brainbot assistant, had flown into an angry tizzy over the invasion of her turf, and it had taken almost a week's worth of downtime to get the poor bot to recover.

Horrified by the thought — especially since he was planning a surprise belated second anniversary party for his friends next week (it being delayed by three weeks was the only way of having it be a surprise) for which he'd need Madeleine's help — Minion abandoned the sorting and untangling project and rushed down into the Lair proper as fast as his robot body and the express lift platform could carry him. After a brief scuffle among the spooked brainbots, one of them reluctantly went with Minion to show him the way.

It wasn't necessary. The clunks and screeches of what had to be metal-on-metal that assailed the piscine when he entered the inner building were quite loud enough to point the way. Down the platform went, straight to the garage level, and once there, Minion needed only to follow the strange noises to their source.

At first, the ichthyoid thought that perhaps Megamind was doing something of the metal-forging, heavy construction type work, which sometimes spooked the brainbots, who feared that they might be taken apart to provide raw materials for some other device. That had happened only once, way back in the early years of Megamind's use of the cyborgs, and it had happened because he'd been seriously displeased with their original appearance and had wanted a sleeker, higher-tech as opposed to ugly grunge look. The bots that had been disassembled hadn't been actually _destroyed,_ but apparently they'd found such a complete refit to be so intensely disturbing, they'd passed on the memory of it to the brainbots for several generations thereafter. It had become a sort of "folklore" among the little cyborgs, a horror story to tell to the newer ones when they got out of line or misbehaved.

But there weren't any of the usual smells that went along with that kind of metalwork, nor the scent of cooking coming from the kitchen above. The squeaks and clanks were annoyingly piercing, which even to Minion in his habitat had a kind of disturbing "fingernails on the blackboard" quality to it, so he supposed that this was what had the bots spooked. The household bots weren't as well acclimated to some kinds of noises as the ones who went out and about the city on a regular basis, so occasionally, fairly ordinary things got them upset.

On the other hand, the noises he was hearing emanating from one of the old workrooms were distinctly _not_ ordinary. It sounded like strange gears and pulleys long overdue for a proper oiling grinding away, letting go with loud thwacks and thuds and clanks, followed by definitely organic moans and groans and grunts before the whole thing was repeated, again and again. The only thing that changed were the groans, which got louder and more wheezy and frustrated with each cycle.

Minion stopped dead in his tracks just before he put his hand on the doorknob. The first time he'd recalled hearing such... peculiarly labored sounds of breathing coming from his ward, Megamind had been about thirteen and in the terrifying initial throes of puberty. One of the things that had made the ichthyoid strongly in favor of his boss's relationship with Roxanne was the hope that he wouldn't ever have the misfortune of walking in on him doing _that_ particular type of very human activity again. Not that he hadn't accidentally stumbled on his friends _in flagrante delicto _a few times, but they'd gotten much more discreet about it (thanks to the kicking in of Roxanne's well-honed sense of acceptable public or even semi-private behavior; had such things been entirely left up to Megamind, presentation might have taken top priority), and the sound damping fields in certain parts of the Lair eliminated the issues of aural overload assailing the poor fish. Now, he knew for a fact that Roxanne was still at work, so these noises that were bothering the bots shouldn't have been what he feared, but still, something made Minion very reluctant to just open the door.

Then again, the boss _had_ learned the wisdom of locking doors during such activities, so maybe all he needed to do to determine whether or not things were safe would be to try to open it. If it was latched, he could withdraw with impunity.

It was unlocked — but Minion wasn't stupid. He knocked first, and called, "Sir, are you all right?"

After a few moments of what sounded like some kind of monumental struggle that the fish simply couldn't define, Megamind's voice answered, in something rather like a cross between a gasp, a gurgle, a wheeze, and a groan of sheer agony. "Yes—" gasp "—I'm—" gurgle "—just—" wheeze "—fine—" groan "—oh good lor—_urrk_!" _CLUNK!_

The clunk was what really concerned Minion, as it sounded very heavy and was accompanied by a semi-metallic twang, like some kind of over-tensed wire suddenly snapping. The agonized "oh good lor—_urrk!_" didn't give him any warm, fuzzy feelings, either. He flung open the door, ready to put the full strength of his mechanical body to good use rescuing his friend. "Sir! Sir, are you — sir, what on earth are you _doing?"_

Inside the long-forgotten workroom — an industrial-sized one that had been refitted as a sort of gym back during the ultimately pointless Hero Training of Hal Stewart, and now long-forgotten because that had been an episode Megamind direly wanted to put out of his mind — the blue hero had set up something that looked like a weird bastard mutant cross between a weight-lifting bench, one of those home workout machines advertised on TV, and a hay baler.

And it appeared that something in the convoluted system of metal arms and pulleys had given way, dropping the lift bar and its ridiculously excessive heavy weights right across the blue hero's upper chest, narrowly missing his throat and effectively pinning him down.

Megamind's wiry legs were kicking and flailing in a losing attempt to get himself out from under the bar, since his arms, with both hands still gripping the bar, were also pinned, useless. He probably would've been shrieking, but the wind had been knocked out of him and his attempts to get a good lungful of air were coming out as no more than feeble "Ah — agh — ack!" wheezes. He was also quickly turning quite purple in the face.

With a shocked, "Oh, sir!" Minion was there in a moment, the strength of his robot-gorilla body lifting away the bar and its much-too-heavy weights like a stick weighted with tissue paper. With the thing off his chest, Megamind's breaths now went in as stronger but still strident "Whee — hee — heegh!"s as he slowly returned to his normal lavender-pink-cheeked blue coloration.

As he tossed aside the weight bar, Minion took in the condition of the room and his boss, who was dressed in what appeared to be a cobbled together set of gym clothes. If he'd been going at this for any length of time, with only slightly less life-threatening results, it was no wonder the household bots had gotten curious, then skittish.

"Sir," Minion said, doing his best not to sound either scolding or denigrating, "have you been trying to work out?"

"Eh—eh—exercise!" Megamind corrected with a wave of one very rubbery arm, his voice regained, if still rather raspy. "It's good for you, Minion! Very heroic!"

The ichthyoid gave him a truly skeptical look. "Yeah, and since when do _you _do it? You've been the city's hero for four years, sir, and you've never exercised like this before!"

"That's because my magnificent mind has always had godlike resistance to the often perilous power known as advertising! But just last night, I saw an ad for that absurdly overpriced _boo-flux _device, and in a flash of pure brilliance, I saw how I could bend my incredibly superior intellect to improving it so that even the feeblest person could achieve genuine physical fitness — so naturally, I had to implement my vision at once, and test it!"

The dubious look on Minion's face didn't fade; it was joined by an even more dubious stance. These days, the boss only went this far overboard with self-praise when he was trying to hide something foolish or embarrassing that he'd done. "Uh-huh. And would this flash of brilliance have happened right after Mrs. Roxanne showed you the examples of the kinds of pictures the fundraising group liked best in the last five years' worth of the firefighters' calendars?"

The suddenly once again purple-cheeked alien spluttered. "No! Of course that had _as-bo-toot-ly _nothing to do with it! It's to set an example for the good citizens of Metrocity! Physical fitness!"

"Yeeaaahh," his piscine partner drawled. "C'mon, sir, you know perfectly well how to say 'absolutely,' and you've gotten a whole lot better about the 'Metrocity' thing — except when you're nervous, or lying, or both. You're trying to work out so you'll come off looking more like those buff firefighters, aren't you?"

Megamind began to puff up with an indignant denial, only to deflate like a popped balloon, legs dangling limply to either side of the narrow bench, one arm draped across his eyes while the other gestured melodramatically. "I...was thinking about it," he admitted, lower lip protruding in a pout that was more sadness than petulance. "Just look at me, Minion! Most of those men have biceps that are thicker than my waist! I'm going to come off looking like the shriveled up twenty pound kid sister of the proverbial ninety-eight pound weakling! I'm going to look totally ridiculous! _That's_ why they wanted me to do this, so I'd be the laughing stock of the entire Midwest, and they could use it as an excuse to ask Wayne to be their full-time, ruggedly heroic-looking hero again!"

Minion sighed as he took a seat on a nearby pile of metal weight discs. "That isn't true, sir, and you know it. Aside from the fact that Mr. Wayne doesn't _want_ to be a full-time superhero again — not to mention that there's no way you'll get any results from working out for only a few days, except maybe hurting yourself — everything Mrs. Roxanne said about people looking up to you and feeling proud of you and even thinking you're as incredibly handsome as you always boasted really is true. I've heard people talking, and seen how they've changed toward you ever since you gave up being evil. Maybe if they'd asked you to do this in that first year or so, it might've turned into something of a nasty joke, but now, even if some idiots try doing that, there are a lot of others who will stick up for you."

The blue arm draped across Megamind's face lifted just enough for one bright green eye to peer out and favor the ichthyoid with an uncertain look. "Really?"

Minion nodded both his robotic head as well as his entire little body. "Really. I understand why you're scared. From everything we get shown in the media, heroes are supposed to be big, tall, strong, muscular, built like those marble statues of Greek gods, and you're never going to be like that, not even if you go on some body builder's diet and work out twenty-four hours a day for the next ten years. But it's just wrong to think that you _should _be the same as people like Metro Man. It's not _you, _sir, everybody knows it. You have the body type of a runner or a swimmer or a dancer, not a linebacker or a sumo wrestler."

When the arm slipped back across the eye and an unhappy sound escaped the ex-villain, Minion decided it was time to go directly to the heart of things. "Sir, have you ever heard about anorexics and why they are the way they are?"

"Of course I have!" came the rather churlish response. "Anorexia, more specifically anorexia nervosa, is a psychologically caused eating disorder, a fear of gaining weight coupled with the obsessive habit of refusing to eat properly, generally brought on by certain cognitive biases that result in the individual having an extremely distorted perception of their body and self-image..."

Having successfully brought on the babble-fit, the piscine deliberately interrupted it before Megamind launched into the vastly more technical aspects of the disorder. "Exactly! It's a _distorted_ perception, and if I'm not mistaken, it often starts in childhood, when the person feels that there's nothing else in their life that they can control — so they starve themselves to death, to feel like they can control _something_. I've heard about people with skewed perceptions who become addicted to plastic surgery, too."

"So what's the point? Are you saying I'm anorexic or that I'll need plastic surgery to ever look like a true hero?"

"No, sir, not at all, far from it! You're thin, yes, but you're not scrawny or emaciated — but most people don't _know_ that, because they're used to seeing you in your costume, and it was designed to protect you, not show off what's under it. What I'm saying is that you do seem to have one thing in common with both those kinds of people. Sometimes — not _all_ the time, thank heavens! — you look in the mirror, and what you see isn't what's really there. Some part of you remembers what it felt like, being locked up in a prison when you were just a little baby, being called names and bullied and told you were bad only because of the way you looked. And when those hurt feelings come bubbling up... Well, you look in the mirror and see everything that you _think_ is wrong with you. You don't see the real you. And the real you isn't an over-muscled brute or one of those grotesque freaks you see in some of those ads for body building diet supplements on the Internet. I know you're not like this all the time, but I really hate to see you do this to yourself at all, even once in a while. You may not be everybody's ideal of physical beauty, but a lot of people like what they see. If they didn't, you wouldn't have troubles with some of your fans ogling you and wanting to get their hands all over you!"

For a minute or so, Megamind didn't move or make a sound. Then suddenly, a crooked smile twitched across his lips as a soft snort escaped him. "You mean like that horde of fangirls who heard that I was coming to England and jumped me the second Roxanne and I got outside the secured area in Heathrow?"

Minion's laugh came out with a flurry of bubbles inside his habitat. "Yeah, like that. I don't think they would've ripped off your shirt and shoved things like their phone numbers at you if they'd thought you were nothing but a scrawny wimp!"

The former felon tried to maintain an air of offended indignation, but it quickly dissolved into laughter as the arm finally fell away from his face to hug his midriff in an attempt to control his mirth. "It was shockingly embarrassing at the time, but I have to admit, there was something weirdly flattering about it, too! Oh, but Roxanne was ready to go after them with full riot gear!"

The piscine showed all his sharp teeth in a wide grin. "I know, I saw footage of her on the evening news, she took out at least eight of 'em with her de-gun before airport security even noticed that something was happening! She was great! If we're ever short-handed, sir, give her own protective gear and she could provide back-up, no problem!"

"Oh, yes, definitely! And you should've been at the pub when she went to have words with the pub-keeper who'd let her network's foreign correspondent start a brawl and break his nose. She just about started a brawl herself when some drunken poltroon tried to 'pinch her tomatoes' — she had him dehydrated before I even had a chance to _see_ the guy...!"

For several minutes, the partners-in-crimefighting kept laughing over silly recollections of fan attacks and Roxanne retaliations that just kept getting sillier and sillier until they ran out of breath from all their side-splitting laughter. When Megamind was finally able to breathe relatively normally again, he sat up, still chortling for a bit before he let out a last, enormous sigh.

"I suppose I _am _making too much of this," he admitted after wiping the laughter tears from his eyes and cheeks with the backs of his hands. "It's... Well, to be honest, I don't know _what_ it is..."

"Yes you do, sir," Minion said, now that his own breathing had settled. "It's because of some of the things those tabloid reporters always dishing up dirt have said ever since you started studying with the Teacher last year. I've heard them call you things like a skinny intellectual geek. I know that _intellectual_ isn't usually an insult, but they've sure made it sound like one."

It was true, and Megamind knew it. "If that's what people think I'm turning into, how are they going to take me seriously as the city's Defender? Especially if I _am _a skinny wimp?"

The ichthyoid snorted. "You're not turning into anything but what you are, sir, and you may be thin, but you're not a wimp. You wouldn't be doing such a good job as a hero if you were, and some people just don't understand what strength looks like unless it's wearing big bulging muscles. There _are _people who prefer lean and fit and intelligent over the typical 'big like ox, strong like ox, dumb like ox' hero. And Mrs. Roxanne obviously isn't the only one."

Said hero didn't argue, but he did make a sound that wasn't quite unhappy. "I haven't cared about the way I looked since I was little, or about people insulting me because I'm smart, but lately, it feels like it's all coming back to haunt me when I don't want it!"

Minion understood. "I guess life can be funny that way. It hasn't been the same for either of us, you know, ever since we gave up evil. I used to think that my sole purpose in life was taking care of you, and now that you have Mrs. Roxanne, it feels like someone pushed the reset button! I never really thought much about what I _wanted _to do, and now that I can, it's like starting over — kinda like I've finally grown up, too, and my life's just beginning."

Megamind couldn't help but grin, mischievously. "You sure that's not because of having Astrid in your life, now?"

Minion stuck out his tongue. "It's not like it is with you and Roxanne and you know it, sir! She lives in another city, and has eight months to go before she'll be finished with her PhD, and then only if her dissertation is accepted."

One blue hand waved in an extravagant gesture. "With you spending every free minute talking to her on the phone or the Internet, being her own private limnology expert and personal cheerleader, she _has _to be a chew-in."

"Shoo-in," the fish corrected. "And it's not _every _free minute, just — you know, that's really beside the point. The point is, we've both had a lot of change in our lives over the last few years, and sometimes change can be uncomfortable. But I think we both know by now that just because people say we're something bad or unflattering doesn't mean we are. Mrs. Roxanne is going to do her best to make sure that anyone who sees that calendar will only be able to say good things about it, and you."

Megamind let loose a long, whistly breath. "I suppose so. Okay, no more stupid attempts to be something I know I'm not. Besides," he added, rolling his shoulders to work out some nasty kinks he'd managed to give himself inside of ten minutes, "I think I may have ruptured half the discs in my neck or torn both rotator cuffs..."

"Don't exaggerate, sir, it's unheroic," Minion chided with a smile as he stood up. "You just tried to bench press _way_ too much weight, and you probably strained a few muscles. Go soak in the whirlpool while I have Madeleine start lunch, and if you're not feeling better by the time you get out, I'll send in Pinky to rub in some of your healing ointment where it hurts."

The former villain snorted softly as he pushed himself up from the bench. "I'm going to have to see about making myself a personal attendant bot," he grumbled, rubbing at his left shoulder. "Pinky's gotten entirely too attached to Roxanne — not that I mind Roxanne getting the attention, but if there's even a hint that she _might_ want something in the next half-hour, Pinky can't concentrate on anything else."

The piscine was sheepishly contrite. "Sorry I haven't been there to help as much as I used to, sir..."

But Megamind waved away the apology without a second thought. "No, no, it's not your fault, Tori. Until four years ago, you'd spent your entire life catering to my every whim — and I know how you feel about coming into my bedroom since Roxanne moved in."

"Only when you're both in there," the fish admitted as they left the room, heading for the nearby elevators. "I hate feeling like I'm invading your privacy, even by accident."

The no-longer-evil genius knew how he felt. "It _can _be awkward. So designing a brainbot to act as a personal valet is an easy solution — just so long as we try to make sure he doesn't bond with Roxanne before he's been properly trained. By the way, is she coming home for lunch? She said she might before we left to go deal with that potential hijacking situation at the airport at the crack of dawn." His scowl showed exactly how he felt about criminals who couldn't at least keep decent hours.

Minion nodded. "Probably, though she expects she'll be a little late. She told me everything's settled with her boss for her to take a few days off this week, but she needs to wait until noon today to call her contact at the charity to confirm that she'll be handling the photography, and make sure she has the right deadlines. We were talking about this over breakfast while you were still at the airport wrapping things up with the FBI, and I have to admit, she has some positively wonderful ideas for all the different months!"

Megamind swallowed a bit nervously as they reached the elevator to the living floor. "She doesn't have anything terribly... ah... er... _suggestive_ in mind, does she?" His throat tightened such that the last word came out as a squeak.

His partner merely shrugged. "It didn't sound like it to me, sir, but we didn't really go into details, just general ideas. She did say she wants you to feel comfortable with this, so I'm sure she won't ask you to do anything naughty."

"Don't count on it," the blue hero muttered under his breath.

His guardian didn't quite hear. "What was that, sir?"

"Oh, nothing!" he was instantly assured with a smile that was just a wee bit too bright. "I was just thinking that I could count on her to do a good job."

It was a glib response, and Minion, trusting soul that he was, bought it. "I'm sure you can. If I can get our lighting equipment sorted out by tomorrow, she has an idea that a good place to start would be right here, in one of the beautiful rooms you built for our home. People don't know that you did this, so she thought that showing off one room as the setting for a photo might be a nice way to sort of introduce them to the idea that you aren't _totally _about black leather and spikes and high tech and all that sort of edgy stuff."

That didn't seem like such a bad idea, starting the project in the secure comfort of his own familiar home, but... "She wasn't thinking the bedroom, was she?"

Minion laughed as the doors opened to the large Prairie School style living room/TV room that was the entrance to the living quarters. "No, I'm sure she knew that'd be a terrible idea. She was thinking of using the library. It's beautiful, it's comfortable, and it's perfectly innocent."

The huge library with its elegantly elaborate neo-Byzantine style and walls full of shelves crammed with books and other curiosities felt like an excellent choice — until two seconds later, when Minion's comment about tabloid twits calling him a skinny intellectual geek came echoing back to the blue genius. He trusted Roxanne not to make him look foolish, really he did, but he suddenly had a feeling that this innocent start she'd proposed wasn't going to wind up being as innocent or as comfortable as it sounded.

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>


	3. A Shot in the Library

_Author's Note: This is FINALLY the full chapter three in all its dubious glory. Things are going along well with my hubby's recovery from surgery (tomorrow, God willing, he will finally be freed of the hated catheter), and the Muse has wanted to do humor rather than serious, so this came before the next chapter of Legacy. A huge thank you to everyone who has been keeping us in their thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, and to those who have so kindly been reading and reviewing both this tale my my others. _

* * *

><p>Chapter Three<br>A Shot in the Library

"Why do you want me to wear such _ridonkulous _looking clothes? Can you possibly think that anyone will_ believe _that this is what I really am? I was under the impression that the reason I was asked to do this is because I'm a _hero,_ not a — a — a..."

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'dork,'" Roxanne said calmly as she motioned for Blinkie to adjust one of the umbrella-like silver reflectors that were being used to soften the studio lights she'd had him and the other camerabots set up in library for the first photoshoot. She knew Megamind wasn't happy with the wardrobe she and Minion had picked out for him because of his mispronunciation of a word he ordinarily said with ease, but she'd never tell him she'd been counting on his reaction. "And while I personally have no doubt that you aren't a dork, you _have _made it very clear that even though you're the city's Defender, you also support improvements to the educational system. The schools are benefiting from the proceeds of this calendar, too, you know."

"Yes, I know," Megamind grumbled, holding up the shirt his wife expected him to wear, along with a pair of sharp-creased slacks. The pants and their leather belt, while conventional, were at least black, as were the equally conventional socks and shoes, but the shirt and other... _things _she'd set out for him were quite another matter. "I'm completely behind improving education, and not just in Metrocity. But you don't have to try to pass me off as some kind of intellectual dweeb professor — and in pink." He held up the crisp dress shirt, which while very nicely tailored was of an apparently offensive hue, two shades in an Oxford stripe, no less. "_Pink! _Since when does _that _say 'this is an intelligent person'?"

Roxanne remained perfectly placid, a small smile on her face. "It doesn't, it just happens to be a color I think looks nice on you, sweetie, brings out the color in your cheeks and ears. And it's not pink, it's shades of light hyacinth violet, according to the Pantone charts. It's the _glasses_ that are supposed to add that classy intellectual touch."

Her husband's face was becoming a not-so-light hyacinth violet, edging toward a neon fuchsia, on more than just his cheeks and ears. "And that's another thing! I don't _need _glasses, my vision is perfect, and even if it wasn't, I now know half a dozen safe, effective, and permanent methods for correcting it! I would _never _resort to something as primitive as — as _spackle-ta-cles!" _He held out the black-lacquered wire-rimmed things by two fingers, as if holding the offensively rotted carcass of some unfortunate piece of roadkill.

Still smiling, the reporter went to check the aperture settings on the main camera, giving her agitated blue hero a kiss on the tip of his nose as she passed by. "I know you wouldn't, but a lot of your fans do, and they might get a kick out of seeing you wear them, like you're one of them. C'mon, hon, it's not like I'm asking you to put on the _really _stuffy things that people think of when they picture cliche academics and librarians. Tweed jacket with suede patches on the elbows, button-down collar, pocket-protector, Clark Kent horn-rims... I could've asked you to dress like Bernard, y'know — for real."

Megamind shuddered. He didn't hate his museum's curator or even seriously dislike him, really he didn't. But the man had absolutely deplorable taste in clothes. Even though he approved of the color of Bernard's signature blue turtleneck, he'd often felt that Jennings should show a little more variety in his clothing choices, or at least a little more flair. He was, after all, the man in charge of the museum dedicated to The Formerly Villainous Master of Presentation, and being so frumpily blah in appearance day after day seemed ill-suited to one in his exalted position.

He grumped and grumbled a bit more. "If you'd done that, I would've canceled the project. All right, I'll see about putting on these other things, but unless you can come up with a more convincing argument for wearing the glasses..."

She wasn't the least bit bothered by the threat; she merely paused to give him the bright and winning smile that she knew he couldn't resist. "If you don't want to, you don't have to, that was the deal. But I'll admit, I'm curious to see how they'd look. I have a feeling they'd look pretty sexy on you."

_That_ was enough to send his just-calmed complexion into a medium hyacinth violet blush. "Well..." he finally murfled after shuffling his feet for a moment and fidgeting with the item in question. "I suppose I can try it, for you. But if I think they make me look ridiculous or they're uncomfortable..."

"We'll ditch 'em," Roxanne agreed as he headed off to get changed where there were proper facilities, like mirrors and brainbot assistants if he needed them. "No problem, I did promise we wouldn't do anything that made you uncomfortable, but just try thinking of this as a costume, not everyday clothes. You're usually pretty comfortable with that."

Just before Megamind reached the door to the hallway, his wife added, "Oh, and by the way, the tie's a standard bow tie. I presume you know how to do it up?"

He spluttered indignantly. "Of course I do! I _am _a genius, after all, the smartest person on the planet! I am _perfectly _aware of how to tie a simple bow!"

"Okay, then, you go get changed, and I'll have things ready to start shooting in about ten minutes."

The blue nose wrinkled as the goateed chin lifted haughtily. "It won't take me _that _long," he declared confidently, then swept out of the room.

Roxanne watched him go from the corner of her eye; a knowing chuckle escaped her when the door was closed. "That's what _you _think," she said to herself even more confidently, then went to have Blinkie change the gel color on one of the overhead lights.

* * *

><p>Ten minutes later, Megamind was still struggling with the truly reprehensible item of haberdashery Roxanne had called a "standard bow tie," having decided that it was an invention of some force of evil far more dastardly than he himself had ever dreamed of being. He had struggled to get it tied into what he knew to be a correct bow, but the piece of cloth was so misshapen, he felt certain there was something decidedly unstandard about it. Not only that, but the collar of the shirt which the reporter had said was <em>not <em>buttoned down was most assuredly just that, while the cuffs on the long sleeves appeared to have no way whatsoever of being buttoned and just hung there, flapping well beyond his fingertips, too long and too loose to look decent by any stretch of the imagination.

"Minion!" the blue hero hissed at the end of the ten minutes, after creeping down the hall to the kitchen, where the ichthyoid was teaching Madeleine a new technique for preparing one of the dishes he planned to serve at the surprise party next week. The fish nearly jumped right out of his robot body at the unexpected call from his friend, who was trying to get his attention without shouting so that Roxanne might hear.

"Oh, sir!" Minion gasped, fins a-flutter, seeing his ward peering around the jamb of the doorway leading to the corridor. "I thought you were with Mrs. Roxanne in the library. Is something wrong with the camera equipment? The camerabots were supposed to have that ready an hour ago!"

"They did," Megamind replied, his voice still kept low, eyes darting about furtively as if afraid of being caught, which he was. "Roxanne's making a few minor adjustments. I was getting changed in the master bath and I had a... a wardrobe malfunction."

Minion was concerned. "Really?" he said, appalled, as he set aside the mixing bowl he'd been using to demonstrate part of the technique to Madeleine. "Don't the clothes fit properly? I'm sorry there wasn't time to make everything from scratch, but I thought I'd made all the right alterations."

The ex-villain stepped into the doorframe, and Minion had to fight not to laugh. Megamind's arms hung down at his sides, with the sleeves dangling loosely a good six inches beyond his fingertips, while the tie around his neck... was in a _sort_ of bow, true, but nothing that looked at all as it should have.

"Sir, what did you do?" the fish had to ask. He knew that his boss was used to having brainbots help him suit up for hero work, but he also knew that his friend had learned how to get into ordinary clothing all by himself, a long time ago. One wouldn't have thought it from looking at him now.

"I didn't _do _anything!" the blue genius protested hotly. "Nothing fits right! The sleeves are too long, the neck is too tight — on _me,_ the _neck _is too _tight!_ — and this... this... _aboomnination..._!" His gesture toward the dark silk tie was anything but polite.

Minion again tried very hard not to chuckle. "Well, the sleeves have French cuffs, sir, they're supposed to be turned back and fastened with cufflinks. Didn't Mrs. Roxanne get any for you? She told me she'd take care of it."

"I didn't see any with the things she gave me to put on," Megamind grumped, sure that there was some kind of conspiracy going on, to make him look foolish.

But his old friend showed no sign of it. "Maybe she forgot to give them to you. It's okay, sir, just turn back the cuffs a couple of times for now, that'll keep them out of your way, and you can ask her about it when you go back to the library."

He accepted that possibility with only a mildly doubtful pout while he did as Minion recommended. "But what about _this_?" he demanded, pointing at the tie with jabbing motions of both hands. "Roxanne said it was something standard, but the only 'standard' thing it is is an instrument of _torture_!"

A small snort of a laugh escaped the fish. "Well, considering how you've got it tied, it's no wonder! To begin with, the tie is supposed to go around your neck _under _the collar..."

"I _know _that!" the irritated hero snapped. "But there are these _ideoteek _buttons holding it down...!"

"That's a button-down collar, sir, they're supposed to be there."

"But she said it _wasn't _that kind! And I _tried _to get it under the stupid collar, but it wouldn't work at all...!" From the deepening purple hue that was spreading all over his head and neck, he was a pressure cooker coming very close to blowing a few gaskets.

Minion used his best soothing tones. "Oh, I guess they didn't have your size or this color in the standard collar when Mrs. Roxanne ordered it, and she didn't notice the difference. Neither did I when I gave it to Little Nipper to tailor it so it'd fit you the way you like. It's okay, it'll be fine, sir. Here, I'll help, I made myself a bow tie to wear when we performed for that charity competition a few years ago, I know how it's done." While he spoke, his fingers carefully worked at undoing the half-knotted mess his friend had made of the thing.

"Be care-_uuurk_!" Megamind's purple face turned rather darker in hue as the robotic fingers pried under the band of the tie to try to loosen the over-tight knot, unfortunately garroting the slender neck a bit in the process.

"Sorry, sorry!" the ichthyoid apologized as quickly as he knew how. "I don't want to hurt you, sir, but this knot is so tight, and I don't want to have to cut the tie to get it off, it's the only one Mrs. Roxanne found that she liked that went with the shirt, and I wouldn't want to hold up the shoot because I — ah, there we go!" A huge gargling gasp/wheeze escaped his boss as the tie finally came undone and the strangling pressure around his neck was released.

"Sorry, sir," Minion said sheepishly as he took the thing to smooth it out so that it might be properly put on again. "When I helped Mrs. Roxanne pick out the things for this part of the photo shoot, I suggested you might be more comfortable with suspenders than a bow tie, but she had an idea she really wanted to try and said this was part of it."

Megamind harrumphed as he rubbed at his abused throat. "Strangling me was _her_ idea?"

"Not strangling, but a certain kind of look she said would be great for the calendar. I'm not quite sure what she meant, but I didn't see any harm in it. Besides, I reconsidered the suggestion when I remembered a time back when you were a teenager, right after you got the idea of turning this Lair into a home. Suspenders were a fashion thing, you had a pair of black jeans you really liked that I just couldn't seem to alter right to stay up on your hips..."

The blue genius shuddered as the memory of that incident came back to him. "Agh, no, you were right to let her have her way! Every tool and piece of machinery and doorknob in the place seemed to think it would be fun to latch onto those things and yank the back of my pants up until — ugh, a _very _bad idea, _especially_ with the brainbots around now. Though I really don't see why Roxanne wanted _this. _A regular tie would look much nicer; this thing is even dorkier than the glasses she wants me to wear." He glanced down at that questionable item, folded up and tucked into his shirt pocket, as if it was a scorpion waiting to creep out and sting him in the neck.

Minion chuckled. "I don't think the glasses are _that _bad, sir, and she did go through a lot of effort to find ones that would look nice on you."

The green eyes stopped glaring and looked up, surprised. "Really? How could she do that without me being there?"

"The Internet. There're sites where you can upload a photo of the person the glasses are for, to see how they'll look in them. She must've tried at least a hundred before she settled on those."

Gingerly, Megamind took the glasses from his pocket. He gave them a considering look for a handful of moments before slowly unfolding them. He examined them for a bit more, then, glancing about to make sure Roxanne or one of the more gossipy brainbots weren't about, he put them on. "How do they look?" he asked Minion, sure that his guardian would tell him the truth.

The piscine paused in his handling of the tie to take a good look before answering honestly. "Actually, they're pretty nice, sir. If you ever did need to use glasses or wanted to, those would be the ones to choose."

"They don't make me look stupid or nerdy?"

"Not at all — and I'm not saying that because Mrs. Roxanne told me to. If you ever want to have smaller conventional sunglasses made, those frames would work very well. Okay, now, let's see if we can get this tie put on the _right_ way."

Now, the blue face grimaced. "I don't think there _is _a right way, she just gave me this to frustrate me. It's not even _shaped_ right...!"

Minion smirked as he threaded the length of silk under the buttoned down collar. "Not for a regular necktie, no, but it's right for a bow tie. You just need to know the way to tie it."

"But it's all... wiggly and misshapen!"

"That's because if it wasn't, it'd come off looking like it belongs on a schoolgirl. Just give me a second..."

As the fish pulled the fabric to tuck and twist it in the correct way, to get the curves to fall in all the proper places, Megamind squirmed, then grunted, then squawked. "Minion! You're cho—_ack_!—king me—!"

"I'm sorry!" the fish apologized. "I'm trying not to, but this thing seems too short!"

The hero's green eyes bugged, slightly glazed from a lack of oxygen. "On _this _neck?" he squeaked, all too aware of how unusually slender that part of him happened to be.

Inside his watery habitat, Minion's tongue was sticking out one side of his broad toothy mouth as he struggled to tie the tie without strangling his ward. "I'm not sure, but I think she might've ordered a child's size by mistake — probably a very _young _child's. But I can get it, just another few seconds..."

"Another few seconds and I'll be passed out!" Megamind wheezed, face purpling again into a shade that, not surprisingly, went quite well with the color of his shirt.

"Oh, come on, it's not that bad," the ichthyoid chided. "Really, sir, heroes shouldn't exaggerate and make such a fuss — and there we go!" The tie now done up properly, Minion slipped his fingers out from under the band and straightened the bow. "Isn't that better?"

His partner tried to take several deep breaths, and finally squeaked, "No! It's too tight, Minion, I can hardly breathe — no, don't!" he shrieked, batting away the mechanical fingers that began to reach for the thing again to adjust it. "I'll... get used to it. Or I'll faint from lack of oxygen and Roxanne will have to try something different. Does it at least look okay?" he asked, scratching at his neck to try to loosen the tie just a bit and to ease an itch from the rub of the now very snug shirt fabric.

"It looks fine, sir," Minion assured him. "Just try not to fidget like this for the cameras."

"It's not fidgeting, it's itching. What is this shirt made of, old barbed wire? It's scratchy all over!"

"It's not the fabric, sir, it's the starch. Mrs. Roxanne wanted it to look nice and crisp, so she told Fluff and Fold to make sure to starch it. They might have overdone it a bit. They never did anything with starch before, we don't have much use for it."

The blue nose crinkled with distaste even as Megamind scratched where the fitted fabric was rubbing across his shoulders. "It feels like one of our old evil schemes," he complained.

Minion laughed. "Oh, yeah, the Dreaded Dust Storm of Diabolical Doom, that was a classic! That was one of your best almost-wins, sir, it gave Metro Man horrible sneezing fits for a week!"

"Yes, but it also got into the dryer vents at the prison laundry and made everything they washed itch for months! Thank God you got me out only a few days later!" He gave up trying to tug the tie to be a bit looser when it just made things worse. "All right, I guess I'll just have to put up with it for a little while. It shouldn't take very long to snap a few pictures, after all. How do I look?" he asked, striking a pose as he adjusted the glasses to ease their unfamiliar pinch on the bridge of his nose.

"Dashingly brilliant, sir," the mechafish approved with a double thumbs-up. "Just remember, be confident! This is for all your fans and the people you'll help through the charities, not for the idiots out there."

"Confident!" the hero repeated. Chin up, he went to do battle with his first photoshoot, figuring that a positive mental attitude might offset the physical discomfort of his clothing that felt like it was getting more uncomfortable by the second.

* * *

><p>He had no idea just how much more uncomfortable things would get.<p>

"Minion said something about these sleeves needing cufflinks...?" Megamind prompted his wife while she inspected his appearance before beginning the shoot.

"Hmm...?" she said distractedly, checking to make sure his shirt was tucked in the way she wanted. Stuffed snugly under the belted waistband of the slacks, the starched fabric felt even itchier. "Oh, those. I thought about having you wear a pair of those cufflinks they sell at the museum's gift shop, the ones with your logo on 'em, but then I decided it would be better if you just rolled up your sleeves, to make it look like you've been hard at work, not fresh out of the dressing room. It'll make for a more accessible appearance."

He was relieved by her instructions, since it got at least a little of the itchy cloth away from his skin.

But not enough, he soon discovered when Roxanne scrutinized the tie and decided it needed adjustment by tightening it up. "I know everyone thinks intellectuals are usually on the sloppy side, but this looks a little _too_ sloppy," she told her husband as he tried to croak out his protests while she tugged at it and made the choking sensations even worse. "You got Minion to help you, didn't you? His fingers are a little too big to do this up right. Don't worry," she added, patting his flushed cheek when she finally ended the immediate torment. "We'll do this quick and then you can change back into something more comfortable."

* * *

><p>"Quick" hadn't happened an hour later, and by then, Megamind was getting pretty hot under the collar, both literally and figuratively.<p>

"This is totally _presuppositorious!_" the ex-villain declared after Roxanne had gotten him set up in yet another part of the library, behind an artfully cluttered desk with a lovely view of the elegant book-laden shelves as a backdrop, only to call yet another halt to things as she sent Blinkie and another of the camerabots up to adjust the overhead lighting. His fraying temper was made quite obvious by his masterpiece of mangled cross-pollinated mispronunciation, not to mention his increasingly florid complexion. "What is so hard about getting one decent picture of me in this _very _uncomfortable _costeeooom? _And _why _is it so _assboordly _hot in here?" He tried to wriggle one finger between his collar and his skin, hoping to create some tiny outlet for the sweaty heat that he'd swear was actually making his glasses fog up.

Standing nearby as she gave directions to Blinkie, Roxanne swatted his hand. "Don't, you'll just mess up the tie and we'll waste another ten minutes trying to get it straight again."

Megamind did as she commanded, but he had to grit his teeth and grip the edge of the desk with both hands to keep from disobeying. "What was wrong with all the other pictures?" he demanded, very irritably. "You've taken at least a hundred, wasn't there just _one _that wasn't bad?"

"Not really," the reporter said in an ever-so-patient tone that her husband was finding increasingly maddening. "You asked me to make sure you look as good as possible, so people can't make fun of you or somehow use it against you, and I told you, I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of photography. Most of the pictures have either been underlit or overlit, or there's been too much glare or not enough backlighting. And some of the settings didn't work as well as I thought they would. But I think this one will do it, everything'll be perfect just as soon as Blinkie finishes changing the angle of that light."

The ex-villain scowled quite villainously, swiping one hand across his considerable — and considerably sweating — brow. "It had better be. This is without a doubt the most uncomfortable outfit I've ever worn, and that includes the worst of the stuff I had to wear in prison!"

Roxanne was unaffected by his glower as she did a quick check through the camera. "Okay, I think that's got it! Pinky, would you give him a quick touch-up? I'm getting a lot of reflection off his skin."

"That's because it's so freaking hot in here!" the put-upon hero snapped even as Pinky, who was acting as the make-up department, flew in with powder and puff, fairly drowning his head in a cloud of the stuff before he could avoid her. Coughing, he flailed both arms to disperse the airborne powder, but not fast enough to avoid getting a blast in the face from the blowdryer carried by another brainbot assistant who followed Pinky, to dispel the aftermath of her work so it didn't leave a mess for the shot. _"Roxanne!" _he shrieked, coming close to critical mass.

"Easy, sweetie, we're almost done," she said, not quite at her soothing best. "Just calm down and sit the way I told you to — could you get just a _little_ calmer, hon? You're so purple in the face, it's throwing off the color balance."

"It's the bloody heat!" Megamind snarled. "Why didn't you tell me these camera lights are so _hot? _ I'm supposed to be having my picture taken as a _hero_, not trussed up and roasted like a Thanksgiving turkey!"

"It's the only equipment that was available," his wife replied sensibly. "I know they're hot, stage lights always are. Maybe you can come up with something cooler that'll provide the right light before we do the next indoor shoot. Okay, you're looking better now, so just give me that nice, intelligent, genius-at-work look that you do so well..."

Five minutes or so later, Roxanne had gotten a few dozen more shots, all of which she declared to be excellent. Megamind, sure that the heat had cranked up a good twenty degrees during those minutes — and equally certain that the combined temperature and moisture from his sweat had steamed his clothes and made them shrink until they were tighter than his own skin, especially the dratted tie — was relieved, thinking the ordeal to be over — until she called, "Hang on a sec, one of the bots was hovering in the wrong place, I can see his reflection plain as day in the glass case over your right shoulder. We have to shoot this again—"

"Like _hell_ we do!" the overheated, over-annoyed, and thoroughly overstressed hero exploded, popping his virtual cork like all the champagne bottles in the world on New Year's Eve. "I have _had _it with this noose and this itchy pink nightmare of a shirt! You _told _the brainbots to put itching powder in the starch, didn't you? And you _delooberightly _bought the wrong kind of shirt and a tie that was too small, _didn't you?_ Well, I — have — _had it!"_

And with that, the overwrought, overcooked, and just plain aggravated-beyond-his-limits ex-villain clawed at the strangling tie, somehow managed to get it loosened, and tore it away in an unusual display of strength fired by a surfeit of angry discomfort that not only managed to pop both buttons holding down the tips of the too-heavily starched collar, but also ripped off all the other buttons that were holding the shirt closed. Having thus loudly declared his freedom from obnoxiously tight and scratchy pseudo-academic clothing, Megamind planted his fists atop the desk, arms spread wide — coincidentally pulling open the now-buttonless shirtfront — and glowered at his wife over the tops of his unneeded glasses, which had slid halfway down his damp nose, his green eyes darkly hooded and smoldering.

_CLICK!_

Beyond the camera, Roxanne smiled widely at her infuriated blue hero and exclaimed, "Perfect! Absolutely _perfect_!"

That response totally befuddled Megamind, and effectively tossed a bucket of water on his overheated temper. It wasn't much, but it was a start. "What?" he said with a frown, unable to see what could possibly be perfect about a photo of him in the midst of what even he knew was an unbecoming fit of pique.

But for the moment, Roxanne merely smiled secretively as she signaled for the camerabots to shut off the lights and collect the equipment. After the passage of a confused minute or two had further cooled his boiling anger back to a mere bubbling seethe, she came over to the desk to give him the properly soothing kiss she'd been withholding.

"It was a trick, sweetie, you're right, and I'm sorry for putting you through it," she apologized, settling on the padded arm of his big desk chair while she explained. "But it was for a good reason, I swear. You're a very expressive person and you certainly know how to put on an award-winning act, but I was afraid that would be just the problem. If I'd asked you to do what I'd had in mind, I'd get an _act, _not something real, and I _wanted_ this to look real. The camera always can spot a fake, especially in posed shots, and the worst calendars are always the ones in which everything looks put-on and phony. I _never _want the rest of the world to see you as a phony."

As she spoke and her earnest explanation sank in, Megamind's seethe reduced to a mere simmer, now mostly one of puzzlement. "So you wanted me to give you a realistic display of being annoyed out of my mind?" That seemed highly unlikely.

But the brunette chuckled. "I guess in a way, yes, that's what I wanted. You see, unlike you, I went to a regular university for four years, and I had a _lot_ of experience with academics and intellectuals and professor types of all kind, from the ultra straight-laced and snooty to the boring unemotional to the overexcited and unintelligible to the excruciatingly laid-back ex-hippies. You're not any of those things, of course, but the people with the fundraiser suggested we do at least one photo of an intellectual or school type thing, since your mentoring program is one of the groups that will benefit from the calendar's proceeds."

"That does make sense," he allowed, now even calmer. "But I don't understand how what just happened could be 'perfect.'"

Roxanne's grin brightened. "I'm getting to that. One of the best instructors I had in college was my physics teacher, of all things. Professor Mumford dressed pretty much like this — button-down collar, bow tie, glasses, though he _did _have the traditional pocket protector, I spared you that much! He was really a brilliant and inspiring teacher, he loved his subject and was very good at getting us interested in it, too — most of the time. Every now and then, we students would be more interested in things like the big football game coming that weekend or activities our clubs and student groups had planned, and we could get pretty inexcusably thick-headed and stupid for days on end. Well, to a dedicated educator and lover of physics, that was totally unacceptable! So when we pushed his patience too far, he'd suddenly go silent and sit there behind his desk at the front of the classroom, giving us a look that scared us right back into getting our minds on our studies — _exactly _the look you just gave me, and the camera."

The blue hero's puzzled expression turned to a smirk of disbelief. "Not _exactly,_" he felt certain, flicking away two of the buttons that had landed on the desktop, indicating by inference the now open shirt to which they'd been attached.

The reporter laughed. "No, not _exactly,_" she agreed. "Professor Mumford always started off the day neatly dressed, pretty much the same way as you did — though he always wore blue short-sleeved shirts, _always _— but he got more and more rumpled as the day went on. Some of that was because he was absent-minded and a bit careless about his appearance, but a lot of it came from the way he'd run his hands through his hair and tug at his tie and just get plain upset with frustration over us dimwitted students. You, on the other hand..."

Smiling impishly, she ran one finger down his exposed chest and back up again, settling the finger under his goateed chin to tip it up and give him a quick but warm peck on the lips before sliding down off the arm of the chair. "C'mon, let's get you out of this annoying over-starched get-up and into something more comfortable. Then I'll show you why I think this turned out just perfect."

* * *

><p>A short time later, after Megamind had gotten out of the scratchy clothes, showered, and changed into a much more agreeable and casual at-home outfit, he joined Roxanne in her home office, where she'd sifted through the plethora of images from the shoot to find the one she deemed absolutely perfect. When she handed him a full-page print of it without a word of explanation, he took the paper and just held it for a few moments before looking at it. The image, he had to admit, was startling.<p>

The picture showed the kind of thing Roxanne had described in her physics teacher, someone prodded beyond the limits of his patience into sternness — not anger, really, but the kind of look that demanded to know why whoever he was looking at simply didn't seem to understand a word he was saying. The expression alone was riveting and something Megamind hadn't actually thought himself capable of, but all Roxanne's clever little machinations had made the whole image into something more. All her efforts to make her subject totally uncomfortable and extremely aggravated had resulted in the rather attractive addition of displaying more than just a hint of his bare blue chest beyond the now open front of his very disheveled shirt. The frustrated tension made visible in the exposed muscles of his torso and forearms and neck showed that though the setting and costume was that of a devoted intellectual, this was definitely _not _the body of a skinny, scrawny, feeble, powerless wimp.

He cleared his throat uneasily as he stared at this unexpected picture of himself. "Well," he finally managed to say. "I — I suppose it isn't too bad — is it?" That was definitely a question. Master of Extravagant Presentation though he was, this kind of thing — more subtle, and yet not subtle at all in other ways — was quite beyond him.

"Not too bad?" Roxanne echoed with a broad grin. "It's perfect! It's just what the fundraising people wanted. It's not cold fashion plate photography, all style and no heart, and it's not jumping overboard into showing _so_ much skin, it would completely ruin the dignity of the city's Defender. It's just suggestive enough to let the people who think you're nothing but a skin and bones weakling see that they're _wrong_ — and if that expression doesn't just _scream _'Stay in School — or Else!' I don't know what does!"

For a minute, Megamind was embarrassed by her glowing approval as well as his earlier overreaction, but as he took another, more objective look at the photo in his hands, he had to admit that through all her machinations, Roxanne had managed to capture him in a way that was both flattering and strangely suited to the kinds of images the people with the charities had said they liked, something that went just a wee bit beyond mere fashion plate or overly stagey photography. It was real, and the more he studied it, the more he found he didn't mind it at all — not even after all the discomfort he'd gone through before that perfect moment had been frozen and captured on film.

An amused smirk twitched up one corner of his mouth. "Okay, I'll admit it, you were right, it _did _work out well. As a matter of fact, I have to give you points for being so devious and underhanded in setting it up. _That_ was _definitely_ worthy of the wife of a former supervillain!"

Roxanne accepted his praise with a playful bow. "Why, thank you, sweetie. Coming from the master himself, that's high praise indeed!"

He smirked more fully, and with just a hint of the old habitual evil glinting in his eyes. "It is — and I just hope you remember who you're dealing with from now on, or you just might regret it if all the other photo sessions turn out to be even _half_ so difficult!"

She was thus adequately warned — but even so, Roxanne didn't make any promises. She _was _the wife of an ex-supervillain, after all, and she had plots and schemes of her own in the making.

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>


	4. Sun and Surf

_Author's Note: This chapter came out surprisingly long, but then, it's going to cover more than one month of the calendar so I suppose that's okay. It seems that my Muse definitely wants to alternate between chapters of this story and chapters of Legacy, which is fine with me. Real Life continues to be somewhat unsettled, but things are slowly returning to a semblance of normal, which is all for the good. Thanks to all who have been reading and reviewing both of these tales, and to those who express their continued support for myself and my husband as we try to get our lives back on track. And I promise, I do have more of both stories still to come, so stay tuned!_

* * *

><p>Chapter Four<br>Sand and Surf

"That's great, just perfect!"

The sound of Roxanne's voice using _that _word came echoing down the hall the next morning, shortly after Megamind had dragged himself out of bed and into the big environmental surround shower in the master bathroom. It had been a long night, not because of the annoyances of the photoshoot the day before, but because of the appearance of a new and extremely irritating villain around ten o'clock last night.

The crook, who called himself Sonic Doom, was a truly scrawny milquetoast of a man. Miles Waldecott had worked for years as an efficiency expert in the accounting department of the unimaginatively named Metrochemical, a major research and processing plant in the new industrial district just south of the city. Miles had long been annoyed by his inability to make himself heard on the job, both literally and figuratively. One day, he'd been caught in the noxious cloud of heaven-knew-what gases billowing out from a massive explosion at the plant, caused by gross inefficiency that he'd tried to warn his bosses about time and again only to be ignored, time and again. The effect of the gases on Miles hadn't given him any of the classic horrible disfigurements or massive strength or any of the various powers of the mind that are often ascribed to such accidents; what it gave him were lungs. Not just ordinary, "I can shout louder than you can" lungs, but lungs and a voice box so immensely powerful, his bellows could shatter glass, crumble stone, and cause minor earth tremors.

Really, it was a rather impressive ability, but Miles had only recently realized the potential of his new skills, and he didn't have a major agenda as a potential villain. What he _did_ have was a major grudge against Metrochemical, who had blamed him for not bringing the problem that caused the explosion to their attention, and had fired him for incompetence and negligence. He'd tried to fight them in the courts since he bloody well _had _brought it to their attention, repeatedly, but the evidence of all his prior reports had somehow disappeared, and between the medical bills and court costs, Miles had wound up broke and bitter.

When his new abilities developed several months after his failed day in court, he started to cook up schemes to destroy Metrochemical, literally, but his efficient little mind deduced that he'd need money to do so in the definitive style he desired. So last night, his new villainous persona ready — along with a truly sulfur yellow costume, the chest emblazoned with a big glowing pink SD that helped the look not one bit — he went after the major bank with which Metrochemical did all its business, intending to drain it of every penny on the premises.

The police and the patrol brainbots went after him when the alarms first sounded around ten. Having blown out an entire wall of the bank building with his voice alone, Miles had been able to use a fairly weak explosive amplified by his booming shock waves to break into the main vault. He'd driven his SUV into the wreckage to load up his loot, and he'd still been at it when the cops and bots arrived, since big voice aside, he was still a scrawny little guy who wasn't very strong and only had two hands to work with.

Even so, he'd managed to keep the police and the brainbots at bay through the power of his voice, knocking them back with the force of soundwaves. Megamind had been summoned after this standoff had continued for almost an hour and the brainbots were coming home damaged and dismayed — an unacceptable situation to their Daddy.

He'd thought of calling in Wayne to go haul the guy out of the damaged building and put a quick end to it, since such a power would have little effect on him and the hero turned musician was still required to do public service to repay Metro City for the hoax he'd pulled with his "death" and all its bad repercussions. But the big lug was out of town for the day, doing a gig in Branson, Missouri that had been planned months ago, so it was up to the Blue Defender and his piscine partner to take care of it.

In the end, it had taken another hour to get close enough to Miles to at least take him down enough to nullify his powers. Megamind had to grant that the guy wasn't entirely stupid; he'd obviously picked up on the fact that de-gun's non-lethal settings had range limits. Whenever someone attempted to move within those limits, he'd let out a boom to bring down another chunk of the building to block them or force a retreat. In fact, any time he felt threatened — even by shadows he thought might be brainbots on the move, coming after him — he'd take down another piece of ceiling or wall to keep his adversaries at bay.

After the crook had made so many attempts to use bits of the building to keep his would-be apprehenders at bay, the structure had begun to resemble a few slices of excessively holey Swiss cheese, and Megamind knew that it wouldn't take much more to cause a total collapse. Had he still been a villain, he might've let it fall in on the idiot, but now that he was a hero, he reluctantly had to save his hide if possible, and without putting any of the police and inevitable breaking news reporters in further danger. To do that, he needed much greater speed and agility, and so he had Minion bring out the jet pack. It was capable of moving him so fast and nimbly that under the proper disguise, he'd been able to make people believe he was Metro Man come back to life. With it strapped on, he waited until he had a reasonable opportunity to move safely through the wrecked building, swooped in, dehydrated the little nuisance, and signaled for the brainbots to come in after him to fetch the cube and bring it out to the waiting police.

While he remained dehydrated, Miles' sonic voice power was of course completely nullified, but Megamind was well aware that he couldn't stay cubed forever. Simple injections of drugs that would paralyze his voice box and limit his lung expansion to that of a normal human would keep him from using his power in any destructive way once he was rehydrated, and to make sure the police doctors had a chance to use those measures, the blue hero had Minion douse the cube so that he could immediately hit the would-be villain with the de-gun's "death" setting, which would put him into an unconscious but harmless state that outwardly simulated death for about two hours, long enough for the measures to incapacitate his sonic powers to be taken. Even as the waiting police came in to claim the "dead" Miles, Megamind came up with several ideas for how to either permanently remove his powers or incapacitate them without the long-term use of drugs, and he wanted to head home to jump into testing those ideas right away.

But then there came the matter of clean-up, with which Minion had felt they should lend a hand, especially since he felt bad about not being able to be more of a help in nabbing the crook. He had found it necessary to keep his distance, as even his massive gorilla suit couldn't stop the powerful soundwaves from moving through the water of his habitat and hurting him. So Megamind went along with the suggestion to make his partner happy (even though he really felt this kind of menial labor was seriously beneath both of them), and they wound up spending considerably more time assisting the various police and city crews clean up the mess than they had apprehending the criminal who'd caused it.

In the long run, it turned out to be just as well that they stayed, since the building had been seriously damaged by Sonic Doom and the unstable structure proved dangerous to mere humans, even ones well-equipped to enter disaster sites. Megamind called in a battalion of the strong and heavily-armored but slower moving brainbots that did emergency repair work around the city. The job of directing them to carefully reinforce the building before the city crews went in was a bit of a chore, and thus it had been closer to dawn than midnight by the time they returned home. The shower to wash off enough of the dust and dirt so that he wouldn't bring grime and grit into bed had been fairly perfunctory since the blue hero had been exhausted and wanted only to sleep, so a second, more thorough shower had been first on his agenda when he finally crawled out of bed close to noon, glad that no new emergencies had popped up to spoil the day.

Roxanne's exultant cry, however, was enough to make him think that crawling back into bed might be a great idea, considering all that had led up to her use of the word "perfect" the day before.

So when she came fairly bounding into the master bathroom with an energy that rivaled Megamind at his most frenetic, said blue hero found himself wishing that he hadn't stepped out of the shower to towel off only a minute before.

"Great news, hon!" she greeted him enthusiastically. "We're going to the beach!"

Megamind's big and only slightly bloodshot eyes blinked, confused. This was what had her so ecstatic? "Why?" he asked bluntly as he exchanged his wet towel for a fresh one to make sure he was completely dry, a habit from years of wearing tight leathers and protective polymer undersuits.

"For the calendar shoot," his wife explained happily. "Beach type shots are almost a must for at least one of the summer months, and I didn't really want to try to fake it in a studio."

After yesterday's session, Roxanne had made it perfectly plain just how much she valued authenticity. Even so, he blinked again. "But it's September," he pointed out, just in case she'd forgotten.

She hadn't. "It is, but you know how we can get roller coaster weather, this time of year, cold one day, hot the next."

"Yes, and we're supposed to have thunderstorms today."

"Tonight," she corrected. "The forecasts say we're getting a surge of very warm air coming in before the cold front moves down. Sunny and upper 80's until this evening — perfect for doing some beach shots, especially since the kids are all back in school and the leaves haven't started to turn yet. We can use the private beach just north of Wayne's little hideaway, no one will bother us there, and we can make it look just like the height of summer, but without the crowds. And I was thinking we should bring your windsurfing gear, there's a good strong breeze today, and it'd be great to get at least one action shot for the calendar that isn't you at work."

Megamind seriously wondered if having lived with him for two years had made some of his personality rub off on the reporter — the overexcitable part, at least. "Go windsurfing in the middle of September? On Lake Michigan?" He made it sound like sheer insanity. "This isn't the Gulf of Mexico, Roxanne, the water here doesn't ever get as warm as bath water, and it doesn't stay even as warm as it gets at the height of summer for long once the sun approaches the autumnal equinox, which isn't even a week away. And I don't own a drysuit, yet..."

She waved one hand in extravagant dismissal, just as he might. "Oh, I wouldn't want _that,_ anyway. You don't use a wetsuit when you surf in the summer, you just wear your usual swimsuit, and we _do_ want this to look like real summer."

Halfway into shrugging on his black silk robe, the ex-villain paused, eyes wide and slightly bugged. "You want me to go windsurfing in cold water, in September, in just my swimsuit? Are you crazy? I'll turn blue and freeze!"

Smiling impishly, Roxanne pulled the robe up onto his shoulders for him, though she didn't tie the belt. "You're _already_ blue, sweetie, and you won't freeze. I told you, they're predicting highs in the upper 80's, and the surface water temperature is still in the sixties — not bath water, but not frigid, either. It wasn't that much warmer a month ago, and I know you're a good enough windsurfer to keep the wipeouts to a minimum."

He didn't look terribly convinced. "Couldn't I do something summery that's _not_ in the water, like ride a motorcycle? I'm sure Wayne would let me borrow his Harley now that I've fixed it for him, and I have the wicked biker outfit that talented reformed ex-convict leatherworker made for me last year..."

But his wife remained adamant. "I'm sure he would, but he's not due back from Branson until tomorrow and I don't want you spoiling the heroic reputation you've worked so hard to build by breaking into his place when he's not there."

"Isn't using his private beach when he's not home the same thing?"

"No, because I called and got his permission, and we won't be going into his hideaway house, just onto the beach. Besides, riding a Harley in all that leather gear would be a better early autumn shot, so it can wait. The sun and the heat won't."

When the pinched expression on Megamind's face didn't fade, Roxanne smiled wryly, settling both hands on his bare chest. "Look, I promised that if you really didn't want to do something for this photoshoot, I wouldn't force you, and I'll keep that promise. But I have to admit, I don't quite understand why this is bothering you. You've been swimming and windsurfing in public before, on beaches that were a _lot_ more crowded than Wayne's private beach is going to be on a weekday afternoon in September, and I'm not asking you to wear anything other than what you would usually wear. Why is this bothering you so much now?"

Somehow, the lavender blush that blossomed across his cheeks coupled with something odd in his expression gave her the answer even before he opened his mouth. "Ah, it's because we'll be taking pictures that are going to be published and sold in a calendar, isn't it?" she deduced accurately. When he nodded briskly, she sighed, but the look in her eyes was as gentle as her comforting touch on his chest. "Mykaal, sweetie, you have absolutely _nothing_ to be ashamed of. You're not a muscle-bound freak, but you _are _a very good-looking guy in excellent shape who isn't the scrawny bag of bones that some people think because they never pay attention. What can I do to convince you, to make you feel more comfortable?"

His blush deepened. "I have no idea," he finally admitted. "It's not as if I'm naturally shy, and if I was really afraid of looking foolish, I would've stopped fighting Wayne when we were still teenagers. And I _am_ getting used to the idea that just because I have a different body type, it's not bad or wimpy. But..."

He paused, nibbling on his lower lip as he thought hard. "When it's just you and me alone together, I'm not afraid of anything — obviously," he said at length, his sweeping gesture indicating that he wasn't at all bothered by the fact that Roxanne had walked in on him still naked from the shower, and the only thing covering him now was a short robe that still unbelted wasn't really covering much at all. Modesty clearly was _not_ the issue. "But... aren't there some things that I should be keeping just for you? Doesn't it bother you at all, thinking that total strangers will be hanging these pictures on their walls, and that if they show certain things, some of them might look at these photos as... well... and they might do..." From the way his blush darkened even more and spread from ear to ear and down his neck, she got his implication.

"I guess some people _do _use even innocent photos and posters as a focus for their fantasies and... what fantasies can lead to," she acknowledged. "I know that's why I was nervous when I made my calendar. It can be embarrassing, thinking of total strangers doing _that_ when looking at a picture of you, and I at least had had _some _experience with the opposite sex, you _never_ did..."

The reporter was surprised when Megamind's expression turned to a frown, though not an angry one. "That was a _choice _for me_, _Roxanne, don't you know that? Yes, I wasn't exactly in a position to pursue women when I was in prison or when I was spending most of my time and energy coming up with my next plan against Metro Man, but that doesn't mean I wasn't ever _interested_, or didn't hear the other prisoners talking, or see the way men and women act in the normal world. I knew what sexual desires felt like the minute I hit puberty, and if I'd really wanted to, I could've gotten 'experience' when I was old enough and on the outside. I didn't because that was my choice, but I _am _familiar with the sorts of things people do to relieve their urges when they're alone — and I know what it's like to use fantasies to... facilitate the release."

The woman's blue eyes narrowed, now puzzled. "Then if you understand it, you know that with _very _few exceptions, it's harmless. So long as it's just in your imagination and doesn't lead to a direct action against someone else, there's no reason to be embarrassed. Those people who consider you attractive and desirable and would use pictures of you like that would probably never have the courage to ever admit it to your face, you know."

He did, but that didn't settle the matter. "It's not embarrassment — not very much, anyway. It's... how I am. The way my people are, the strong emotions and all that. When I was young, fantasies were just a way of relieving physical tensions, and it _was_ totally harmless. Until I met you. Everything changed, then."

A ghost of a crooked smile twitched at Roxanne's lips. "You mean you _never_ had any fantasies about me?" she teased lightly. "From all those copies of my calendar you bought — and still have around — I kinda thought otherwise."

She didn't think she'd ever seen the shade of intense purple-red that now colored her husband's face. "I did — and I didn't," he admitted in a timid voice. "I did have fantasies about you, yes, and... I don't think I have to tell you what they led to, sometimes. But it wasn't the same. I dreamed about you, I wanted you, I _loved_ you, the way my people do when they meet someone they want to spend the rest of their life with, with everything they are. You're not just the love of my life, you're the other half of me — you've said the same thing, so you must understand that."

Roxanne considered it for a moment, then nodded. "I do, but not quite the same way you do, I guess. We Earthlings still have a long way to go before we catch up to your people, and not just intellectually. So the problem isn't embarrassment, it's that you're afraid someone who already has a crush on you might look at the pictures and—"

He interrupted her before she could finish the sentence. "Not exactly. I suppose some of it _is_ something like that, because other than you, I'm really not used to people looking at me _that _way, and I'm not really sure I _want_ them to, but it's mostly because..."

He was obviously struggling to find a way to explain, and finally went for a blunt approach. "I know how people can react to pictures that are suggestive. I know how _I _reacted to them. I don't have a string of former lovers in my past not just because I was an alien and a criminal, but because once I met you, I decided that there wouldn't ever _be _anyone else. I'd made my choice, for better or worse, regardless of whether or not you ever wanted me, too, and I was prepared to spend the rest of my life alone if needs be, because loving you meant I couldn't _ever_ force myself on you. For my people, that's completely natural, so even though you didn't know it, you never had to worry about me turning into a crazed stalker! But now that we're married, to make photos of myself nearly naked and sell them to people, some of whom will use them in... prurient ways would make me feel like I'm cheating on you, and I would _never _do that, never! _That's _why this is making me nervous! Even if it seems perfectly innocent to you, to me, it feels... wrong. Not making the calendar, but making some of the pictures of me too provocative. For some people, just having so little clothing on would be enough."

The ex-villain was being so utterly honest, for a moment, looking into those wide green eyes, Roxanne found herself rendered speechless. Then, the ghost of a smile became more substantial, more real, and she made a sound that was both a laugh and sigh. "Mykaal, you are without a doubt the most _different _man I've ever known — and every time I discover a new example of just _how_ different you are, the more I love you. I do understand why you aren't comfortable with this, from the problems of being compared to Metro Man to being afraid of how people might... misuse the pictures."

The beginnings of relief washed across the blue face like the first ripples of a returning tide. "You do?" he asked, hopeful that she understood more than that.

She did. "I know that your people really do have powerful emotions that make you react to some things in ways I wouldn't expect. If you can't get past this feeling that making pictures for the calendar of yourself in your swimsuit would be like being unfaithful to me, then I won't argue with you, I'll think of something different to do for the summer months. I can see that you meant what you said and weren't just making up an excuse to avoid feeling inadequate. But before you make a decision, let me tell you exactly how _I _feel."

She slid her hands up his still slightly damp chest to wind her arms around his slender neck, her smile growing warmer as she drew him closer and gazed straight into his eyes. "I'm proud of you, in every way I can think of. Five years ago, you were still determined to keep following a 'destiny' that was a terrible mistake, and now, you've not only turned your life around, you've also found your _real_ destiny, and you haven't let it run your life, or ruin it. You've done so much for so many people, and somehow, in spite of it all, you haven't let it go to your head, not the way you would have when you thought you had to be a villain. You've earned every good thing that's happened to you, and you've learned how to share it, with me and Minion and even Wayne and Bernard and every person in the city, and more. The beautiful person you hid away to keep from getting hurt doesn't have to hide anymore, not in any way."

She touched his lips with one finger when he began to say something that she knew would be some kind of protest. "I _do _understand what you just told me, about feeling like you'd be cheating on me to deliberately put pictures in this calendar that would be an obvious temptation for sexual fantasies. When it comes to our relationship, you're even more loyal and protective than Minion's ever been, and with emotions as strong as yours, I can see how this might be an issue for you. But I think there's something of a culture clash mixed up in this — and I don't mean the culture of your homeworld. You've let me see a lot of that through the Teacher, and in things you've told me. I think it's your _prison_ background that's really causing the problem."

Megamind's eyes widened, startled. "You do? But — but I'm not really like a lot of those men — am I?" He sounded afraid of hearing the answer, terrified that she might say yes.

But Roxanne chuckled, kindly. "Hon, you're not like _any _of those men, not in any way that really matters. You've told me about them, and I've seen studies about the kinds of habitual offenders who wind up spending most of their lives in prisons for good reasons. Too many hardened criminals have attitudes toward sex that aren't healthy, for one reason or another. Photos become more than just a focus for harmless fantasies, they become the beginning of obsessions that too often lead to violence. You managed to avoid having their attitudes rub off on you, but you were still _exposed_ to them, at particularly impressionable ages, and now, you don't want me to feel ashamed or angry over what other people might decide to do with the pictures from what's supposed to be a charity publication."

He nodded vigorously. "Yes. If even one person said or did something because of it that hurt or upset you, that'd be one person too many."

Still smiling, she kissed him, very tenderly and very thoroughly. "Thank you," she said when she let him breathe again, glad to feel him more relaxed from the demonstration of how deeply he was loved. "It's sweet of you to want to protect me, even from things like this. And I don't mean to belittle how you feel, but I think this is one horse that's already out of the barn."

Megamind's large brow furrowed with confusion. "You didn't say anything about there being a horse on the beach, did you? Did I miss that?"

His wife couldn't help but giggle. "No, it's just an expression. It means it's already too late to stop something because it's already happened. And trust me, it has. You've seen some of those cell phone pictures and amateur videos people have taken of you when we've gone to the public beaches. If someone has the hots for you and wants to find pictures of you wearing next to nothing to fuel their fantasies, there are plenty of pictures already out there for them to use — mostly crappy pictures, but they're there and they're easy to find. You _know_ they are."

He had to admit that she was right on that point. Most such pictures were really nothing to get upset about; they'd all stumbled across them while using the Internet. Even regular fan mail could be either a delight or a nightmare, depending upon the contents, and all of them knew it.

It was Megamind's turn to sigh. "That's true," he conceded. "And as disturbing as some of it gets, the only stuff that ever seems to upset you are the things that scream 'this person is a potential stalker.'"

She nodded. "Exactly. Those people we need to worry about, but they're really few and far between. The rest of 'em are just part of being a celebrity, and we have to learn to take the bad fans along with the good, so long as the bad aren't dangerous."

"And you don't think that these pictures you have in mind might give some of the potentially dangerous people any fuel to make them switch from harmless fantasy to harmful action."

Now, she shrugged. "I can't say absolutely not because I can't read the minds of the whole world, but in my opinion, I don't think it will. You _are_ a superhero, after all. These closet admirers would have to be literally crazy to try anything more than send you love letters and drawings and such. You may get a few who go a little overboard, but I don't think it's likely to cause any serious problems, and I certainly don't ever feel that it's evidence of you cheating on me. But you've given some good reasons to feel a little concerned, so I'll tell you what: let's go down to Wayne's beach, to relax and have a good time enjoying this nice weather before it goes away for the rest of the year. I'll take a bunch of pictures like I always do, just with a better camera, and when we get home, we can sit down and go through the photos together. If we can't find a couple that you'd feel comfortable with having in the calendar, we can come up with something different and try shooting it tomorrow. If we wait much longer, the weather'll turn cold or the trees will start to change, and we won't be able to use any local sites and still get away with having people believe it was taken during the summer."

The blue genius considered her suggestions, then nodded. "As long as you're okay with it, I guess we can at least try. Are they really predicting temperatures in the upper eighties today?"

"Close to ninety," she confirmed. "It's already 84, and we've been running warm all week, but being September, you know it can't last forever, so we'd better take advantage of it. And we don't have to spend the whole day there, just a couple of hours, tops."

"Did you want Minion to come along?" Megamind asked as he tossed the used towels into a hamper and tied the belt of his robe in preparation for heading out into the hallway to go back to their bedroom.

"Only if he wants. Blinkie and his assistants can come to give me a hand with the camera equipment and props if I need it, and since we're not going for the whole day, it might not be worth the hassle for Minion to switch bodies. I know he hates the way sand gets into the joints and fur of his gorilla suit, and Wayne's beach is mostly dunes."

"Well, it can't hurt to ask, he also hates it when he thinks I'm not letting him make his own decisions — and I can't blame him, for years, I was awful that way."

"Then I'll ask him, you go get dressed," Roxanne suggested as she followed him into the hall. "And you can bring along your work outfit if you want, just in case you get called to handle a real emergency, but try to pick out something summery looking to wear. If the swimsuit pictures don't work out, shots at the beach in shorts and a shirt might do it."

Megamind gave her a wry look. "Should I wait for you to come in and give my wardrobe your stamp of approval before I put on anything?"

The brunette gave an amused snort. "Just don't make everything black, or I'll wind up wasting time getting you changed again."

His answering grin was a strangely innocent leer. "Is that a promise?"

She leered back. "It is — for later, lover boy, only if you behave yourself now."

He stuck out his tongue in a deliberately childish response. "Spoilsport. But if we don't spend more than an hour or two at the beach... I can live with that. I'll be ready in five minutes!" he promised, bounding away with boyish enthusiasm, down the hall to disappear into their bedroom.

Roxanne laughed, glad to see him cheerful again and willing to try. She'd known from the start that the summer shots would be the most problematic, since they would logically be the ones showing the most skin, and though she'd expected him to be a little balky about it, she hadn't quite anticipated why. Now that she was aware of the biggest potential snags, with any luck, the rest of the shoot wouldn't require such cajoling just to get him in front of the camera. _If_ they got at least two shots that met with his approval today. If they didn't, she was going to need to do some fast thinking, because frankly, she had no idea what else to do for July and August that would be so suitable for both the summer activities and the wishes of the fundraisers who wanted this calendar to be a rousing success in sales.

* * *

><p>Once at Wayne's beach — a rather desolate but picturesque stretch of the kinds of dunes for which the eastern shore of Lake Michigan was so deservedly renowned — Megamind was able to relax and get into the spirit of just having fun and showing off for Roxanne, windsurfing in the rough but not unmanageable wave and wind conditions. Still somewhat tired from the long night of work dealing with and cleaning up after Sonic Doom, the blue hero didn't have quite his usual stamina, but he certainly gave it his all while it lasted.<p>

After about twenty minutes of impressive cavorting — really for the sake of his lady love, not the camera — Roxanne saw the first signs of fatigue in his performance and waved him in. She'd gotten plenty of good shots between her own camera and those carried by Blinkie and his two assistants, who had also helped haul equipment and set up a colorfully traditional spot for them on the beach, complete with a big umbrella and huge blanket. It was mute testament to his flagging energy that Megamind didn't put up a single peep of protest when she summoned him back to the shore.

After he joined her, they settled down on the blanket to enjoy a picnic lunch that Minion had packed for them when he'd elected to stay home, preferring to mind the store over going through all the effort of getting ready to go to the beach for just a short visit that was really for business, not pleasure. While they ate, the three brainbots collected Daddy's windsurfing gear and secured it to the top of the car — Roxanne's tricked out Corvette, which had a temporary rack attached to its roof to carry the surfing equipment so that the Invisible Car could be left with Minion, just in case he was called away on official business.

It was a light lunch but a delicious one, and after they'd taken their time eating it, Roxanne told her husband to stay there on the blanket and let the sun and wind dry him a bit more thoroughly while she took the picnic hamper back to the car, parked on solid land up beyond the top of the dunes. Megamind didn't argue, since he wanted to make sure he was completely dry before attempting to change back into his clothes, disliking the irritation that came when wet sand stuck to the skin dried out and then chafed something awful whenever the fabric of clothing rubbed it into invariably tender-fleshed areas.

As long as she was back at the car, Roxanne double checked the job that brainbots had done with the surfing equipment, and finding it well secured, she gave them permission to either remain at the beach or head back home. The two assistants headed back, but Blinkie chose to stay, just in case any unique photo ops came up. He wandered up and down the beach, never going too far from Mommy and Daddy; Roxanne returned to the blanket, and smiled to find Megamind totally zonked out in the shade of the umbrella, using his neatly rolled-up clothes as a small pillow.

She knew he was exhausted from the night before and didn't wake him, though she did take a lot of pictures. Completely relaxed and for the moment without a care in the world, he was utterly adorable, and she wasn't going to ignore the opportunity to capture it on film, even if the images wound up being for her own private scrapbook. And when she'd gotten more than enough shots, she packed up her camera to keep it safe from sand and winds and water, then snuggled up beside her husband and soon drifted off herself, lulled by the sounds of the waves and the warm sun, their privacy guarded by the watchful and dependable Blinkie.

She had no idea how long they'd been asleep when the familiar sensation of a brainbot nudging her arm while bowging frantically woke her. The first thing she noticed when opening her eyes was Blinkie hovering just above her, using two of his arms to poke and prod both Mommy and Daddy, his red eye unusually bright. That brightness led to the second thing she noticed, that the sun was no longer shining on them. In fact, it seemed to have gone down.

They couldn't possibly have been asleep for more than four hours, could they?

She felt rather than heard Megamind stirring beside her, sitting up and then moving with surprising quickness. When she turned her head away from Blinkie, she saw her husband shrugging into his summer-weight shirt as he got to his feet. From the way the wildly blue-patterned fabric was whipping around his slender torso, the wind had picked up considerably, and with the sun gone, the temperature had dropped noticeably.

"There's a storm line coming in," he told the still sleep-befuddled reporter, a claim proved a moment later by flash of lightning, soon followed by the deep rumble of thunder. "It must've blown up pretty fast, or Blinkie would've warned us sooner. He and I will take care of the umbrella, you grab your camera and the blanket and my other clothes and get into the car, stat. We'll be right behind you."

Roxanne may have been a strong woman, well able to hold her own in many situations, but she wasn't a stupid one. If the storm had been dangerously near, Megamind wouldn't have bothered with collecting things that could be easily replaced, he would've grabbed her and gotten both of them the hell out of there. It was part of his protective nature, especially toward her, and if he was willing to delay long enough to get their stuff off the beach, the danger wasn't imminent. But another flash of lightning against the sickeningly dark and slightly greenish clouds was enough to get her moving more quickly up the plastic-gridded path on the face of the steeply sloped dune, to where the car was parked on solid and rocky ground. The searing crackle of thunder followed the flash about fifteen paces later.

Fifteen paces, about fifteen seconds, that put the storm a little more than three miles off. Fairly close, but fortunately not right on top of them yet, though it was clearly heading their way, fast. She heard Megamind yell an order to Blinkie over the noise of the thunder and wind and the now-pounding waves; a glance back showed the brainbot lifting away from Daddy, the folded umbrella firmly held in its tendril arms as he carried it up to the car. Megamind, seeing Roxanne looking in his direction, gestured for her to hurry on and into the car, as he was already heading for the path. Still barefoot, he wasn't as steady on the shifting beach sands, but when he finally reached the grid-reinforced path, he moved much more quickly. Reassured, the reporter hurried on.

Once in the Corvette, she heard the sounds of Blinkie securing the beach umbrella onto the rack with the surfing equipment. When the bot was finished and dropped down to window level, Roxanne opened the door to let him inside. He zipped in with a grateful bowg, settling into the area behind the seats.

From the shelter of the car's interior, she looked out at the approaching storm and couldn't resist bringing out her camera. For years, Roxanne had had troubles with violent storms, a mild phobia stemming from a camping trip gone wrong in her childhood, but ever since she'd gone out with Megamind into the teeth of a bad storm on another part of Lake Michigan, shortly before their wedding, she'd found she wasn't quite so terrified of them, and could actually appreciate the beauty of the clouds and lightning — so long as she felt reasonably safe. She'd seen gorgeous photos of thunderstorms taken by photojournalists far braver than herself, and when she could, she tried to see if she could capture at least one picture of the same caliber, from a safe distance, of course. She was a strong and determined individual, but even though she was married to a former supervillain and had been the virtual prize in his battle with a superpowered demi-god, she knew she didn't have the makings of a storm chaser.

With the car's window rolled down so that she could remain inside and not have the beginning rain spatter the glass and ruin her shot, she aimed the camera toward the top of the dune path, so she could both see the advancing storm and keep an eye out for Megamind. She hoped the rain didn't start pounding down in earnest before he scaled the slope, or he might have to wait it out at the bottom of the dune. Even with the grids to reinforce the path, the sandy inclines could be impossible to climb when very wet.

She was just beginning to worry that something bad had happened to delay him when she saw him reach the top of the dune through the camera lens she had trained on the storm clouds. As the camera fired on its own, set to automatically take shot after shot in hopes of catching one or two exceptional images of the wild weather, the wind picked up as the rain blew in with a flurry of lightning out over the lake. Having reached solid footing on the land beyond the dune's topmost edge, Megamind turned for a moment to glance back at the display of nature's fireworks, the lightning bright on his rain-wet skin and his open shirt flapping in the gusts of wind. Roxanne knew that he was fascinated by thunderstorms, but rather than stay out in it after taking his look, he turned back and hurried to the car, not wanting to leave his potentially nervous wife alone for long.

"It's getting pretty wild out there!" he declared breathlessly as he quickly jumped in on the passenger's side while Roxanne flicked off the camera and closed her window. "So much for the storms holding off until tonight, it's barely half past three! Everything okay in here?"

The reporter smiled as she started the car, thinking of some of the images she'd quickly reviewed in the camera's display window while Megamind was running to get inside. She'd regretted not having a camera along during that storm at Cave Point over a year ago; after seeing only a few of the shots she'd just caught by pure luck, she no longer felt that regret. Even if he still felt uncomfortable about all the pictures she'd taken of him windsurfing and napping on the beach, she had a feeling that he wouldn't mind the shots of himself standing and facing the storm with the lightning behind him and reflecting like liquid fire off his skin. "Everything's just great," she assured him, and meant it a hundred and ten percent.

* * *

><p>When he saw the photos an hour or so later, even Megamind had to agree.<p>

The best shots of him windsurfing were active and athletic, displaying even in frozen images the agility and strength he'd long needed to survive all his battles, first with a superpowered nemesis and more recently with the newer villains that rose up to threaten the city and its people. They also captured the energy and the joy with which he always tackled challenges, an excellent thing to show to those who looked upon him as a role model.

The pictures of him napping under the beach umbrella came as a surprise to the blue hero, since he hadn't realized he'd been photographed that way, and the nap hadn't been at all intentional. There were a few images Roxanne carefully didn't show him, keeping them for her own private photo album which she _might _let him see someday. But those that she did hand over for his inspection and approval all had a certain sweetness about them, the adorable innocence of a hard working hero relaxed and catching up on neglected sleep, charmingly vulnerable in his few stolen moments of well-earned rest.

But the most impressive of the lot by far was one of the candid photos of Megamind facing the oncoming storm. It was entirely nature's art direction, captured by Roxanne's lens in an instant of pure luck. The roiling dark clouds of the approaching squall line rose up like a fierce, sickly wave about to crash down on anyone foolish enough to stand in its way, its destructive power made even more evident in the searing bolts of lightning that danced around and through it. Between the darkness under the thick clouds and the brilliance of the lightning, the high-contrast of the image made it almost colorless, a study in black and white in which Megamind stood as a figure of black shadows and gleaming bluish silver. Braced against the wind, his shirt was whipped back, but otherwise he stood strong amid the forces of nature, his sharply-lit expression one of determined, almost eager defiance. It was the way he sometimes looked when taking on adversaries as the city's defender, ready to fight, ready to protect, ready to move into action at a moment's notice.

It was a perfect depiction of unconscious but resolute heroism, captured in one quicksilver, split-second instant, and not even Megamind could argue that it wasn't an accidental work of Art that made him look very much the powerful heroic figure Roxanne and others kept trying to reassure him that he had truly become. If some fans and admirers saw this picture and found it inspiring, even in prurient ways... well, he couldn't control their actions and reactions, nor could he deny that it was a genuinely beautiful photo that deserved to be in the calendar. Neither of them knew it at the time, but some months later, it would win Roxanne several awards from both journalism and photography associations.

For now, with it included, they had taken care of three months of pictures in one day, June, July, and August. With four down and eight to go, they both hoped that the rest of the shoot went so easily.

It might have, if not for the opportunity that fell into Roxanne's lap that evening, one she simply couldn't pass up.

_To be continued..._


	5. Take Me to the Faire

_Author's Note: A big thank you to all my readers and reviewers! I've been trying to keep alternating chapters of this story with chapters of Legacy, and I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to keep up that rhythm, but happily, the Muse was willing to be cooperative! I'm not quite sure how many more chapters are still to come, so I hope everyone is willing to stay along for the ride. Onward!_

* * *

><p>Chapter Five<br>Take Me to the Faire

"How on earth do you expect to get any decently professional photographs in the middle of a _Runnysoonse _fair? I've seen your reports on them! They're nothing but hotbeds of noise, crowds, germs, dirt, and all sorts of... _henodism!_"

"Renaissance," Roxanne corrected ever so patiently. They were in the Lair's garage area, where she was in the process of checking her camera equipment to make sure it was clean of any sand and grit after yesterday's unexpected storm, and Megamind was trying his best to convince her that this newest idea for the photo shoot was a bad idea while they both waited for Minion to bring down the costumes he and his brainbot sewing helpers had been hard at work on all night. "And hedonism, though I'm not sure that really applies. It's just people dressing up and having fun, sweetie, and since Kim and Ken couldn't use the tickets they'd bought for today, I thought it was nice of them to offer them to us. It's something you've never done before, and it since you enjoy wearing costumes, it seemed like a great idea to use as a setting for the October picture. Kim said this is their last week for the fair, and they have the whole site done up in a harvest theme. It's perfect!"

Megamind winced. It seemed that every time that word came up lately, it meant something uncomfortable was either about to happen to him or already _had_ happened to him. "Fine, I won't argue that the setting would be appropriate to the time of year, especially since we're still a little early to get natural fall color. But do I _have _to wear a costume that's so... _poofy?"_

He meant that both literally and figuratively. When Roxanne had first told him her plans for today, he'd gone looking on the Internet to see what was suitable costume for the period, and he hadn't been terribly reassured. While he could be as flashy and flamboyant as one could imagine, there were some things that just felt... creepy to him, at least if he was asked to wear it. Ruffles, for instance. Especially big ruffles made of or trimmed with more ruffles of lace. Apparently, men of the Renaissance didn't have a problem with them and actually enjoyed them, a _lot_, but some of the pictures Megamind had found had been nothing less than horrifying — particularly if he was going to be asked to wear them for a picture to be printed in a calendar.

Roxanne knew what he was referring to, and she smiled. "Relax, tiger, nobody's gonna ask you to dress up like Henry the Eighth or his daughters. I'm with you on the subject of ruffs, I think they look perfectly ridiculous, and with your neck...!" She paused in her work long enough to catch him as he paced and give him a quick but sound kiss. "I wouldn't do anything to make you look ridiculous. I want everyone who looks at this calendar to stop thinking about the villain, the alien, the loser, and see the real you. I know that starched ruffs and yards of prissy lace aren't you. And I'd think that by now, you'd trust Minion's sense of what looks good on you. He hasn't ever made anything for you that made you look foolish, has he?"

The ex-villain cleared his throat. "Well... once, a long time ago. He was still learning, and I told him I was sick and tired of prison orange and the kinds of drab clothes we'd been scrounging up to use as the bases for costumes. I said I wanted something dazzling, with real style and flair, something that would make everyone sit up and take notice! So he went out scavenging and hit the jackpot. One of the clubs had been cleaning out their wardrobe rooms, and he found a ton of fabric that was definitely... eye catching."

From the way he grimaced when he said it, Roxanne had a feeling there was more to the story than met the eye. "Which club?" she asked.

Her husband squirmed uneasily. "He _said _he wasn't sure, something about an umbrella..."

The reporter's blue eyes widened. "The Pink Parasol?" When his ears turned as bright a purple-pink as the club's signature color, she knew she'd hit the mark. "That place has been notorious for one reason or another for at least twenty years! When it hasn't been a strip club, it's been either a showcase for female impersonators or a gay bar, and a seriously tacky one. Which one was it when Minion raided its trash bins?"

Megamind groaned. "I don't know, I don't care, they were _all_ just awful! He tried so hard to come up with something to make me happy, but...!"

A visible shudder ran through his slender frame at the memory, and the green eyes, which had been closed against the images from the past, snapped open. "_Please_ don't tell him I told you!" he begged. "After we had a... loud discussion about it, we promised one another we wouldn't ever, _ever _bring it up again, or tell _anyone! _I've made so many foolish mistakes over the years, I got used to everyone knowing about them, but he... he's a fish, you know, and in some ways, he's had a much harder time feeling accepted, even though everyone seems to like him. He felt terrible about misreading what I wanted so badly, and it was a good thing I never actually wore the thing he made in public, we both would've died of embarrassment!"

As she listened, Roxanne had to struggle a bit to keep from laughing at the possibilities her mind conjured, given the kinds of things Minion had undoubtedly had to work with. Spangles, sequins, lamés, gaudy chiffons and satins and cheap crushed velvet... "I guess everyone makes mistakes when they're learning how to do something new," she allowed most charitably. "Someday, remind me to show both of you my early attempts at knitting. You'll see exactly why I'm happy to leave all the domestic things to Minion and the brainbots. But you know he's gotten a _lot _better, sweetie. I'm sure he won't do anything to embarrass either of us."

Megamind abruptly stopped his pacing to look at her with astonishment. "You— you're going to wear a costume, too? Really?"

She nodded. "Just something borrowed from the studio's wardrobe department that Minion wanted to spiff up a little. I didn't think it'd be fair to ask you to do this in a public place and not do it, too. We'll be a couple as far as the fair-goers are concerned, you only need to be alone for the calendar shots."

Her confession had the almost instant effect of calming him. "Oh! Well, if you're going to do this, too, I suppose it won't be too bad — just so long as I don't have to wear a _rauf_ or ten pounds of ruffled lace, or _anything _with starch!" He winced at the very thought of the stuff that had made the first shoot so deliberately uncomfortable.

This time, Roxanne allowed herself a laugh. "No, no starch, I don't want you to rip off any of your clothes, this time. It's enough that I'm asking you to put on the costume and take me to the fair, I couldn't do anything else to mess with your dignity."

He seemed reasonably mollified by that, though he gave a small harrumph. "I hope Minion agrees with you. He never complained about designing me new costumes, but I could see just how happy he was when you moved in and he could start designing for _you._ I've sometimes wondered if he wished I'd been a girl."

"Oh, no, sir, never!" came the ichthyoid's firm insistence as he emerged from one of the back rooms, which contained his sewing shop. "It's just nice to have a chance to do some different kinds of things for Mrs. Roxanne, that's all. I couldn't even _imagine _you as a girl, sir, it's just wrong on so many levels!"

Megamind snorted. "_That_'s a relief." He then saw what his partner was carrying and frowned. "Unless you expect me to wear _that!_"

Minion laughed. "Of course not, sir, this is Mrs. Roxanne's dress, I just made a few alterations for her." He held up a lovely Renaissance period gown in a rich wine-red and black brocade with trimmings of gold cords and white lace. "I got rid of any hanging ribbons and veils so they can't accidentally blow into the picture, and I made sure the lace cuffs won't dangle and get in the way of your equipment."

"No corset?" Roxanne asked as she inspected the pretty gown.

"Not unless you want to wear one. I reinforced the bodice seams with the same kind of flexible boning I used on your wedding dress, so it'll keep its shape and not interfere with your movement or breathing."

"Excellent!" she approved. "Did you get Mykaal's outfit finished? We'll need to go within the hour, or I'll start to have lighting issues at the fair site."

"Just barely, it's — ah, here we go!" When he turned to glance back toward his workroom, a group of brainbots came out, carrying the little curtained-off "dressing room" that they'd been using for years whenever they helped Daddy to quickly change outfits.

Rather than step inside as he always did, Megamind eyed the thing with clear trepidation, a look he turned on the brainbot attendants as well as Minion. "If this is a way of tricking me into something totally _ridonkulous,_" he said at his most villainous, threatening best, "we're going to have a nice new heap of spare parts — from all of you!"

The bots bowged nervously, but Minion merely blew it off. "It's not a trick, and it's not ridiculous. Just try it on, sir. If you hate it, you can wear anything else you want and Mrs. Roxanne will just take pictures of you at the fair like that."

"That was the deal he and I made last night when he volunteered to do this," the brunette confirmed to her husband. "If you don't like what he came up with, we'll just go in our civvies. It'll still be a nice setting, even without the costumes — though I should tell you, I know that when you looked up Renaissance clothing last night, you saw what the women's gowns looked like, too. This dress is one of the sort with a tight bodice and an almost scandalously low neckline, and I'd kinda hate to send it back to the wardrobe department without you first having a chance to see me in it..."

Megamind stepped behind the changing curtain so fast, he seemed to disappear.

The rippling of the curtain was followed by a brief series of grunts, groans, and assorted noises such as, "Ow! Oof! Look ou—ch! Hey, that's my — what _is _th—_ack!_ Not in the eye, not in the—heeYEEE! Not there eith—_urrrrgh!_ Too tight, too tight, too—_oof! _ Agh...oh! Uhhh — _oh!"_

The last sounds had an odd quality of surprise to them, and not the kind of horrified surprise one might have expected. "Are you all right in there?" Roxanne called when the brainbots didn't whisk away the curtain as fast as they usually did when doing a quick-change for Daddy. Minion seemed somewhat startled by the strange noises, since his boss usually didn't complain about these things, but with new and different clothes, the bots had apparently wound up manhandling him a bit.

"Yes, just a second," came the not-quite-immediate reply. "Button and Snap seem to be having a few issues. Couldn't you have used more sensible closures, Minion?"

"I tried, sir," was the piscine's long-suffering response. "But I've heard that the people at Queen Bess's Faire are very fussy about garb being historically accurate, and I didn't think you'd enjoy what their so-called fashion police do with people in costume who are obviously over-modern. But I did cheat and hide a zipper in the pants, so they won't see and you won't have problems if you need to use the facilities."

"Thank heavens for small favors," Megamind grumbled back. "Are you two finished?" he asked of his helpers, who had been bowging back and forth to each other, trying to decide whether or not they'd done everything right. An exasperated sigh followed. "Oh, never mind, let Uncle Minion decide if it is or isn't." Button and Snap didn't sound very sanguine about that, but the three bots holding the curtain decided that they'd been dismissed.

When the brainbots lifted away the "changing booth," one might have thought from color alone that the Blue Defender hadn't changed at all. Knowing his boss's tastes and what might help keep him a little more in his comfort zone, Minion had made everything in either black leather or electric blue silk with fittings and embellishments of silver. But while there was no lace trimming, much to Megamind's relief, there also were no spikes or studs.

What Minion had done was to take a pair of his friend's close-fitted glove leather pants and alter them just enough to make them look like Renaissance-era breeches, the kind that would be worn for riding, as they were tucked into a pair of high black boots that looked suited to such an activity (as they'd been stripped of anything that would make them look too modern, or like a part of his normal work costumes). The silk shirt, which Little Nipper and Splice had worked hard on all night, had a broad, flat collar that spread across the shoulders and hung down the front rather than flare up as his preferred collars would. It had very full sleeves gathered into tight bands with softly ruffled cuffs, but nowhere were there any of the feared froths of lace or stiff ruffs that he'd seen in so many pictures. Instead, the collar had been made of not-quite sheer blue silk which the bots had embellished with decorative overstitchings of silver and black, patterns that were repeated along the narrow hems of the cuffs. Minion and Buck, the brainbot who maintained Daddy's leather goods, had spent the night coming up with a black leather jerkin, very closely fitted, with short cap sleeves that broadened the shoulder line even as the closure at the waist accentuated the deep V of the front opening that was softened by the full, draping collar. Minion had even added a decorative belt and what appeared to be a rather formidable looking dagger in a similarly decorated sheath.

The ichthyoid waved for Button and Snap to bring over a full-length mirror so their still twitchy Daddy could get a look at himself while Roxanne gave a very earnest wolf-whistle. "Oh, sweetie, you don't need to change a thing, I'm gonna be beating 'em off with a stick as it is."

Megamind flushed faintly as he twisted and turned and tried to get a look at himself while the bots fetched the mirror. "You don't think it looks silly?" he asked, fingering the edge of a part of the collar that spilled down from his shoulders.

As he moved about, trying to see everything, his wife appreciated how his gyrations accentuated his snugly leather-clad behind. "Oh, no, anything _but _silly!" she assured him. "But Minion, is the dagger going to be okay? I know they have rules about attendees and weapons."

The fish nodded his entire little body. "No problem, I already checked. Aside from the fact that Sir is recognized by all the local and regional law-enforcement agencies, it isn't really a dagger. It's one of the things we've been working on developing for the police, to replace the electric shock devices like tasers. It uses a modified version of Sir's 'death ray' to hold a person in stasis for anywhere from five minutes to an hour, depending on the setting. The 'jewels' on the hilt are the buttons for the settings, and it fires by pressing the large blue stone on the guard." He pointed to all the different parts as he mentioned them.

Even Megamind was suitably impressed, not by the basic device — which they'd been working on for over a month, looking for ways to refine the Death Ray for the needs of the police — but that he'd managed to whip up this casing for the basic circuitry so quickly. "And you made all of these things last night, by yourself? Tori, I really need to give you a raise or something...!"

Minion flittered his fins in his version of a happy blush even as he chuckled. "Well, I didn't do it all by myself. Little Nipper and Splice made the shirt from a pattern I found on the Internet, Buck helped me with the jerkin and the pants alterations, and Blaze, Chip, and Micron worked on the dagger. I'd had an idea for a casing like this a few weeks ago when I saw a news article about people who work security at unusual venues, where they can't wear traditional uniforms. I think I'd seen an Errol Flynn movie marathon the day before — or maybe it was _Pirates of the Caribbean._ One thing just sort of led to another, and I thought that I'd try to get it done before that Halloween masquerade ball you and Mrs. Roxanne are supposed to attend next month. This just gave me a reason to finish it sooner."

Roxanne's face lit up in a grin as Megamind examined himself in the mirror the bots had finally brought. "Oh, Minion, that's great! We can take the pictures today, and use these same outfits for the ball next month — that'll tie right into the Halloween theme I had in mind for that month on the calendar."

The fish fairly glowed with her praise while Megamind made a few odd noises of critique. "It's actually not too bad," he finally admitted after examining the slashing on the front of the jerkin that allowed a few narrow strips of the bright blue silk to peep through the solid black of the leather when he bent or twisted. "I'm still not completely comfortable with all these ruffles and no stand to the collar, but... I guess I can deal with it. Just don't go getting any ideas that I want things like this in my usual wardrobe!"

Minion grinned. "Only for Halloween, sir," he promised.

His ward accepted the vow with a brisk nod, examining himself once more in the mirror before giving a little sigh. "No, it's not bad at all. Though I'm beginning to wonder if all these clothes are Earth's way of reminding me that I'm always going to be an alien, here. There really isn't anything in all Earth's fashions that look like the clothing my people wore, the closest they come are some costumes in bad science fiction movies."

He sounded thoughtful rather than sad, but Roxanne came and gave him a gentle kiss, anyway. "Then thanks for being such a good sport about this," she said, unable to resist giving him a quick, playful pat on the butt. "I promise no more outrageous outfits, okay?"

He nodded even as he gave her a sweeping glance. "Aren't you going to get changed, too?"

"Only if you drive and help me carry my gear. I might've skipped the corsets and farthingales and ruffs, but I still hate driving in long skirts."

When he agreed, Minion whistled for Button and Snap and the other bots to bringing back the "dressing room" to help Mommy, who was then treated to her first experience with the bots' quick-change skills. It took a little longer with her, since they'd never helped a woman before and Daddy reminded them very forcefully that if they put so much as one scratch or bruise on Mommy, they'd be disassembled for parts. And while they worked, Roxanne used the opportunity to think about the remaining months still to be photographed, reflected on something Megamind had said, and was suddenly struck by a new inspiration. Not for today, but after they returned from the fair, she was going to have to take Minion aside and see if he thought it could be done before the photography deadline next week.

If it worked, it would definitely be the most perfect perfect shot of all.

* * *

><p>Queen Bess's Faire turned out to be nowhere near as bad as Megamind had been dreading. Both Roxanne and Minion had blessedly spared him the absolute indignity of insisting he wear period headgear. Aside from the fact that a fair amount of men's hats of that era looked silly to modern eyes, the big-headed alien knew just how ridiculous just about any headwear, short of earmuffs, looked on him.<p>

Roxanne, on the other hand, was just beautiful, stunning in the rich dark fabrics that made the most of her feminine shape in ways her everyday clothing didn't. Once out in the dappled sunshine of the fair site, Megamind had a hard time taking his eyes off her, and was glad he'd gone along with her suggestion for the day's shoot. Even though it meant dressing up in an outfit from another era, he was glad to have done it just for the pleasure of being her bodyguard and escort. He now understood what she'd meant about needing to beat people off with a stick, as he'd caught both of them being ogled from the moment they entered the grounds, but happily, people recognized the blue villain turned hero and his famous wife and knew better than to mess with either of them. There were plenty of stares and smiles and whispered words and pictures snapped, but nothing they weren't used to.

After they'd made a circuit of the grounds to scope out potential sites for the photos, Roxanne went to speak with the person in charge about the times the areas she wanted to use would be available for them to take the pictures without being overly intrusive to the atmosphere of the past. She'd been careful to choose a camera that would give good results without being too large, so she was able to carry it concealed in a slightly oversized drawstring bag Minion had whipped up from a piece of black brocade, not quite the period reticule carried by the ladies, but better suited to her gown than the baskets carried by the women in peasant dress.

The manager — who was dressed in low-key peasant garb, very utilitarian and not as showy as the colorful performers and some of the equally colorful guests — escorted them to a private pavilion that had been set up to act as a command center on the grounds. On the inside, it was as dull and boring as any modern field office, and it didn't take long before Megamind's attention began to wander. There was really nothing inside the tent to hold his interest, but after a few minutes, he began to hear a sharp, rhythmic clanging from outside that piqued his curiosity.

"What _is _that?" he wondered aloud, trying to make the noises fit with some activity that might be taking place in this very unmechanized location. He supposed it might be something like a sword fighting demonstration, but the clangs sounded much too heavy for even the heaviest blades.

"It's John Morton, the blacksmith," the manager provided while he and Roxanne consulted schedules for the different venues. "He's just down the main path to the left, works on and off all day long. He's half the reason I spend as much time out on the grounds as I can, I'd have a killer headache from this noise if I didn't."

The alien's big green eyes lit up. He'd seen blacksmiths in movies and on television, but never in real life, and though he was very familiar with modern equivalents such as welding and certain types of forging, he'd never seen smithing in its original form. When he glanced at Roxanne, about to ask if he could scoot out and have a look, she was already smiling and waving him out.

"Go ahead, have fun," she told him. "Just don't wander away like you did that time we went to Summerfest, okay?"

His answering smile was sheepish, recalling everything that had happened as a result of him unintentionally standing her up for a dinner date. "I won't, I promise," he vowed, then was off like a shot.

Even if the manager hadn't told him where the smithy was located, once Megamind knew that was what he was looking for, his sensitive nose would have led him directly to it, following the acrid scents of the burning coal and heated metal. Though somewhat more pungent than the smells of modern welding and soldering, the ex-villain found them much less objectionable than the stinks of some of the places he and Minion had used as their early Evil Lairs. The smithy was, after all, the origin of much of what was now called engineering, and having worked metal with his own hands since he was a toddler, Megamind was interested in seeing how well this play-actor reproduced an actual smithy of half a millennia ago.

Given the environs of the fair grounds and the limitations of making sure everything was safe for the site and the visitors, Megamind felt the man hadn't done a bad job of it at all. The basic arrangement and implements of smithies had remained much the same since coal had first been used to fire the forge; certain refinements had been added with improvements of technology, but the purpose, to work metals, was the same. Morton, the blacksmith, was a large man whose upper body showed the strength inevitably gained by those in his profession; his skin was dark, though it was difficult to tell if that was the result of working in the heat of the forge or his natural skin tone. The smithy was hot and had to remain so to keep the optimal conditions for working the metals, so the fellow was shirtless, though he wore a stained and scorched apron of heavy leather to protect himself from any flying sparks.

It was still relatively early in the day, so the group of fair-goers watching the smith at work from beyond a stone half-wall that kept them at a safe distance wasn't so large that Megamind couldn't keep to the shadows from a spreading oak that stood beside the smithy wall and shaded the building from the added warmth of the sun. He wasn't feeling shy anymore about being seen in the costume Minion and the brainbots had whipped up for him, but he still remembered all the ogling and simply didn't think it would be fair to draw attention away from the smith, who was here as a job, not just as a lark. In the shadows, especially in his dark clothing, he wasn't quite so easily noticed, and he had a fairly good view of the smith at work.

For the sake of his audience, which at the moment was largely young people and their parents, he'd elected to fashion something simple, a horseshoe, which was quickly and easily done. He had an easy, friendly manner that made the watching ex-villain wonder if he'd been a teacher, or still was one who picked up extra money performing at these fairs. If he was, he did both jobs very well, handling the hot metal and tools of the forge as deftly as he kept his audience's interest. Megamind found himself smiling at the way the man wove his explanations of his craft with humor, and he stayed where he was, leaning against the trunk of the tree and watching after the demonstration was over and the audience drifted away, their attention caught by a troupe of passing mimes and jugglers and other entertainers.

Morton, the smith, brought out a larger piece he'd been working on, what looked to be a piece of a suit of armor that needed repair. He set the thing on the anvil to hammer out a few small dents and was about to do something else with it when he stopped, looked straight at the surreptitiously watching hero, and smiled.

"You can come closer to watch, if you want," he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. "I don't think I have to worry about _you_ touching things that'll burn you, like the kids and some of their parents would."

Megamind hesitated for a moment or two, not wanting to shock the man if he hadn't realized who he was talking to. But his tone said that he knew perfectly well who he was addressing, and it mattered not one bit to him. He smiled crookedly as he stepped out of the shadows into the dappled sunlight. "Does that actually happen?" he asked. "Visitors burning themselves, I mean."

The smith shook his head. "No, thank heavens, but usually once or twice a season, some idiot or a kid whose parents aren't watching sneak past the barriers and manage to singe themselves. Nothing worse than that, I keep a pretty sharp eye on things, and if the crowds get too big or rowdy, I either close up shop or get some of the other performers to stand guard for me. I didn't know you went in for this kind of thing — the whole Ren Fair scene."

"I don't," the ex-villain admitted. "This was all my wife's idea, but so far, it's been interesting. Are you a professional blacksmith, or is this just a hobby?"

"A little of both. I learned blacksmithing in the farm town I lived in when I was a kid, and it paid my way through college. Now, I teach industrial arts at Metro Central High, and I do this during the summer and on the fall weekends to bring in a little more income. And it's fun, too. I've been thinking you should know how that feels, what with being city's defender and coming up with all these new things to improve the quality of life for more than just the city. I couldn't design or build some of the things you have, but I like to think I do pretty okay in my own way. You've obviously done metalwork before, but have you ever worked in this kind of smithy?"

Megamind shook his head as he stepped into the shop, at Morton's inviting gesture. "Prison workshops are totally pedestrian, and I need very different facilities to build most of my inventions. Not that this isn't fascinating in its own way. It's like the difference between drawing on a computer and using traditional materials. They can produce similar results, but the process of getting there can have its own unique satisfaction."

Morton chuckled. "Yeah, that's right, I just wish I could get some of the kids in my classes to understand that, they think everything these days should be done with computers and robots."

The alien snorted. "Have you reminded them that _someone _had to build the robots and computers?"

"Oh, sure, but they all think they'll be the designers, not the builders. Hmm, enough of that kind of talk or I'll get the Authenticity Police shutting me down for not staying in character. Would you like to give this a try? It's not the same as the stuff you're used to working with, but I think you'd find it interesting."

The green eyes blinked, a bit surprised by the invitation, but more surprised that Morton hadn't fallen into the common assumption that Megamind was too weak to handle something like the heavy hammers of the smithy just because he wasn't tall and musclebound. His look of unabashed amazement melted into a small smile of pleasure at being so readily accepted. After that, he simply couldn't refuse.

Morton was a very good teacher, engaging enough to keep the sometimes-too-quick-for-his-own-good supergenius interested in this impromptu "apprenticeship." Megamind did try to be a good pupil, and rather than become impatient when things were too basic or didn't move quickly, he regaled his instructor with the history of blacksmithing, both on Earth and on his birth planet, where the craft had evolved slightly differently because of such things as variations in the kinds of fuel available and the acceptance of technology by the more primitive forms of their societies.

His babble-fit fascinated Morton, who had heard the tabloid speculations about the local hero turning into some kind of emotionless supercomputer set to take over the world, but he'd been unable to reconcile such insanity with Megamind's increased interest in the educational system, which he clearly wanted very much to help. Now, he saw something in the blue alien that none of those stories had mentioned: an extremely intelligent person, eager to learn all he could of all there was to know, and passionate in his desire to share the excitement of that learning with anyone who would listen.

It was teachers like this who had fired Morton's own desire to learn to teach what he loved to others, and he found himself smiling as he listened to the reformed villain happily going on about such things as how the optimum temperature for an iron and steel forge was gauged by the color of the flame, necessitating lower lighting so that it would be easily visible, and the suitability of various fuel types to achieve and maintain said temperature. The smith couldn't tell if he was deliberately keeping his little diatribe toned down to suit the era of the reenactment, but he had a feeling that if he hadn't said anything about the need to keep the conversation appropriate for the patrons, he'd be hearing about ultra-advanced smith-related subjects that would be flying right over his head.

But he couldn't complain. Megamind's babblings were actually quite interesting, and he was a very willing pupil, despite a few gripes about the ungodly heat inside the shop. Before long, he was showing his unexpected "apprentice" the breastplate he'd been repairing, explaining why this one should really be replaced rather than repaired, and how one would do that. Before long, they were attracting the interest of a fair sized group of spectators, and though he wasn't objecting, Morton had to wonder if it was the demonstration that was drawing people to his shop, or his unusual but eager temporary "apprentice." Either way, he wasn't going to argue.

* * *

><p>When her business with the fair's manager wrapped up, Roxanne headed off to find Megamind, hoping that he hadn't lost interest in the smithy and wandered off, since it had taken longer than she'd expected to iron things out for the shoot. As the noises of metal being worked led her to the shop, she noticed that the smith was apparently quite a popular attraction, given the size of the crowd. She didn't think Megamind would be too hard to spot and was scanning the throng in search of the bald blue head when she heard a rather odd bit of a discussion from several women with cameras.<p>

"You know, I never really thought he had any muscles..."

"What _did _you think he had? Noodles?"

"For all I could see, yes! I mean, who knew?"

"Deb said something last July, didn't she? After that lakefront beach party the city threw for the Fourth?"

"Oh, pffft, you know she's gone, she could've just been making it up 'cause she's got these fantasies."

"I suppose, but... cripes, she's gonna kick herself for not coming today. Did you get a good shot of him? I think mine's a little too dark..."

"I think I'm good, but I don't mind trying for a few more. Deb is just gonna die — but at least she'll get to say 'I told you so.' Who would've thought...?" The two women moved off, trying to get a little closer to the smithy, and though she couldn't hear the rest of the sentence, Roxanne definitely caught the word "hot" just as they stepped to the side and let her get a clear view of what they'd been ogling.

Inside the blacksmith's shop, the smith himself was supervising Megamind in his first attempt at working metal with these antiquated tools and methods. The women might have been speaking about the interior of the forge, which from the sheen on both men's skin was quite hot, but she knew that wasn't the case. To prevent the more easily damaged parts of his costume from being ruined by errant sparks from the forge, her husband had removed his silk shirt and black jerkin while he happily hammered away at the heated metal, shaping it as the smith instructed. Though his skin was now exposed to the potential of flying sparks, he was taking great care, and Roxanne knew from past experience that while his blue skin was inhumanly soft to the touch and definitely vulnerable, it was also much better able to shrug off certain kinds of harm than any Earth human's. Between the yellow-orange light of the forge's fire and the faint sheen of moisture on his skin, his lean but well-defined musculature was very evident, and though he was intent on his work and oblivious to anything but it and the instructions of the smith, he was clearly drawing a lot of attention, especially from the female fair-goers.

Roxanne couldn't blame them, not one bit. She found herself staring at her husband with her mouth hanging open for the better part of a minute before the reporter inside her gave her a swift kick to wake up and get her own pictures of this before the moment was lost. And not necessarily for the calendar; like the women she'd just overheard, these might well be things she'd want only for her personal collection. Fumbling a bit with the drawstring bag, she managed to get out her camera and switch to a better lens just fast enough to get perhaps half a dozen good shots before Megamind finished what he'd been doing and the shifting crowd got in her way.

Mildly frustrated but not overly so since she knew she'd snagged at least one or two very good photos of him at work at the forge, Roxanne hastily shoved the camera back into the bag and went to meet her husband. By the time she was able to make her way through to the front of the crowd, the two men inside were no longer working at the anvil, and Morton was examining his temporary "apprentice's" handiwork while Megamind used a wet cloth to wipe the grit that inevitably came with working at a coal-fired forge from his face and arms. The moment the bright green eyes spotted her, his face lit up in a huge grin.

"Roxanne!" he greeted most cheerfully, waving for her to come join them. "Did you see, Mr. Morton let me try working with his equipment, it's nothing at all like the stuff I'm used to, but it's fascinating, finding how people used to work metal with such primitive implements! He teaches at one of the high _shkools, _and he has all sorts of ideas for getting the kids interested in careers in the trades and crafts by showing them how they first started, like this!"

She smiled wryly at his only slightly sooty enthusiasm. "Like this, by doing it the old-fashioned way, or by stripping yourself half-naked in front of a crowd?"

The hero's cheeks flared bright purple, and not from the heat of the furnace. "I'm _not _half—well, I suppose I am, sort of," he admitted, quickly setting aside the towel to collect his discarded pieces of clothing. "But it's very hot work and I didn't want to upset you by damaging the costume before we had a chance to take the pictures you want!"

Her smile became more earnest. "I'm just teasing, sweetie, it's fine, I understand. We may need to find you a place to wash up a little bit more thoroughly, though. You know how the camera can pick up every speck of dirt and — hey!"

As the crowd began to thin after Megamind finished working at the forge, traffic on the main path began to move again. Having quickly shoved her camera back into the bag to get it under cover, Roxanne hadn't noticed that she'd left its strap sticking out — but someone amid the throng with sticky fingers had. Whoever he was, he recognized the strap from an expensive camera dangling from the opening of the untied bag; when he saw his chance, he grabbed it, yanked — nearly pulling the reporter off her feet — and ran off, trying to get lost in the crowds as quickly as possible.

Megamind's head snapped around the instant he heard his wife's annoyed and angry cry. He saw the guy making tracks with her camera, and all his instincts as both her husband and a hero kicked in. Dropping the shirt and jerkin, he kept hold of the knife and belt, strapping the latter around his waist as he jumped the half wall that kept visitors to the smithy at a safe distance and sprinted after the thief. Several people had tried to stop the crook without success, but they had slowed him just enough for Megamind to keep him in sight and plot a way to intercept him.

On the rutted earthen path full of fair-goers, he couldn't close the distance between them, especially not once the thief started to deliberately wind his way through a knot of visitors watching a show of jugglers and acrobats on a raised platform. Rather than risk losing him by attempting to follow his path through the crowd, the wiry alien jumped up onto the stage, leapt atop the narrow wooden rail at the back of the platform to stay out of the way of the performers bouncing all over the stage, and sprinted its length as nimbly as an alley cat running along the top of a fence on familiar turf. The thief, faced with a much higher stone wall that marked one of the boundaries of the fair grounds, had no choice but to turn in the direction of the stage, so that when he emerged from the crowd and tried to make a dash into the open backstage area, he found himself swiftly tackled and pinned down by a determined blue hero as he made a running leap off the stage rail.

"I believe you have something that doesn't belong to you," Megamind growled as he flipped the fellow onto his back. While his knee pressed into the man's stomach to keep him down, his left hand reclaimed Roxanne's camera while his right pulled out the dagger Minion had made and pointed it at the thief's throat. In the process of flipping him, a number of objects spilled out of the crook's jacket; a quick glance identified them as more wallets than any one person would be carrying. "Hmm, it seems that you have a _lot _of things that don't belong to you! I don't suppose you'd care to tell me where you 'found' all these things, would you?" He pressed the flat of the dagger's tip to the base of the man's throat, just for emphasis.

The thief tried to squirm loose, but the way Megamind had him pinned down didn't give him any way to gain the leverage he needed. So instead, he glared at the hand holding the knife pointed right at his throat. "You — you wouldn't use that thing," he snarled. "You wouldn't dare!"

The ex-villain's teeth gleamed white in a grin that was strangely mischievous and feral. "I would if you gave me a good reason to," he promised, running his thumb along the line of gems on the hilt, lingering longest on the topaz just below the guard.

"You wouldn't," the thief insisted, cockily sure of himself. "You want people to go on thinking you're a real hero, you can't pull a knife on me and use it, you miserable piece of alien shit, not and keep people from turning on you and that dog-loving slut you have the balls to call your wife!"

Megamind was used to being insulted, but he'd always hated hearing Roxanne maligned, especially by scum whose mere existence polluted the planet. His smile took on a lethal edge even as his narrowed eyes gleamed dangerously. "That's a _very _good reason," he declared, and shifted his thumb to press on the large faux sapphire at the center of the guard. The thief's eyes widened in shock, believing he was about to have his throat slit, but instead, a pale blue-green lightning bolt shot down the length of the blade and into him, sending him into a state of temporary stasis.

Several members of the fair's security staff, led by Roxanne and Morton, arrived just in time to see the crook hit with the simulated death ray. With him now immobilized, Megamind returned the "knife" to its sheath and climbed to his feet, returning his wife's camera to her as she joined him. "It looks as if he's been very busy today," the blue hero remarked, gesturing to the scattered wallets and the odd bulges in the thief's jacket that very likely hid other stolen items. "I used the lightest setting on the stunner," he added for the sake of the guards, "so he should only be out for five or ten minutes. Long enough to get him somewhere secure until the police arrive, I hope."

The guards — locals who were familiar with the various gadgets the Blue Defender used to bring down criminals — assured him that it would be, two taking the limp thief in hand while the other two collected the items that had fallen from the thief's jacket, taking precautions to keep from accidentally ruining any fingerprint evidence. Both the acrobats and their audience had paused to watch the city's hero at work, and applauded when he followed the security guards who brought out the captive crook and hauled him off.

As Megamind waved to the approving crowd, he was suddenly acutely aware of his shirtless state. Morton offered him his own plain brown cape to wear, which he gratefully accepted even as Roxanne kissed his cheek and they headed back to the smithy to collect the rest of his garb. It was turning out to be a pretty good day after all, and if the photos Roxanne had in mind went smoothly and the police didn't decide he needed to hang around for hours to give a statement about his apprehension of the thief, they'd have another month completed and the project would almost be half finished.

The shoot did go well, the police didn't need more than the answers to a few simple questions, easily corroborated by dozens of witnesses, and they headed home with a very encouraged Megamind feeling that maybe the rest of the this calendar thing would go off without a hitch.

Until the next morning, when Roxanne unveiled her _next_ perfect idea.

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>


	6. The Big Setup

_Author's Note: __When I started to write this story, I had initially thought that it might have a chapter for every single one of the pictures taken, but as it developed, it finally occurred to me that it wasn't really a feasible approach. Aside from the fact that I'd already consolidated several months' worth of pictures into the shoot at the beach, the truth is that not all of the photos are going to have stories worth telling to go with them. Over the years, I've learned that when writing, one has to develop a sense for when the story is going at a pace that keeps things interesting and when things are being dragged out too long, and I concluded that to try to write this as originally anticipated would be dragging it out too long. Boring is the last thing any fiction writer really wants to be. BUT — this doesn't mean that the story's over, and as a matter of fact, it wound up having this chapter run much, much longer than I'd thought it would. So yes, it ends on a dreaded cliffhanger. But the next chapter is already well underway, and I expect it to be finished in the next few days. So stay tuned!  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Six<br>The Big Setup

The next morning, Roxanne made the mistake of letting Megamind take a look at the images from the fair on her camera's photo card that she'd sent off to the printer while she took a shower before breakfast, forgetting that she hadn't yet removed the pictures of him working at the blacksmith's forge. He was initially scandalized by the images — his big eyes came perilously close to popping out of his head — but by the time she finished cleaning up, it was too late. She came into the room, toweling off her hair, saw him looking at _those _shots, instantly turned as red as a beet, and hurriedly tried to explain why she'd taken them before he could demand to know how she could _do_ such a thing.

"You didn't say anything to me about this," he began as he flipped from one printout to the next, in a calm voice that she was sure betided a dreadful storm to come. "And I know there were a lot of people watching and taking pictures, even if I was too preoccupied to really notice it at the time. But..."

His brows drew together in a thoughtful squinch; he motioned to the photos. "You weren't bothered by this at all, were you? That's why you teased me about it." He didn't sound angry at all, and Roxanne was truly astonished by it.

"That's right," she confirmed, relieved that he wasn't upset. "You really are a beautiful person, and when I overheard some of the women admiring that fact, I couldn't've felt more proud of you if I'd tried. You've worked so hard to be good, to deserve all the praise and attention you've been getting, and I love hearing other people say the things I've known for a long time, even if I didn't want to admit it when you were still pretending to be evil."

Megamind snorted softly, but not in dismissal. "I obviously haven't convinced that jerk who tried to steal your camera — but people like that aren't likely to ever change their minds, even if I saved their lives and gave them every penny I own. Idiots. Were you planning to use one of these pictures for the calendar, or are they for your 'private collection'?"

Roxanne again blushed quite fiercely, an amazing rarity, given that as a reporter, she'd seen just about everything and had pretty much broken her blushing reflex ages ago. "Um... I was going to keep them for myself," she said quickly in a small, bashful voice. "So you don't have to worry about that."

"Oh?" When Megamind looked up at her, his big green eyes actually seemed disappointed. "Well, I suppose whatever you want is best, I did ask you to be in charge of assembling the calendar, after all. But all things considered, I'd expected you might want to use one, they seem to be just the sort of thing the fundraisers like."

He tapped one of the printouts spread out before him atop the bed. "This one I thought would actually be a very good choice. A lot of the calendars using the firefighters and police and other sorts of 'everyday heroes' like to emphasize the 'workingman' aspect, and using something like this could help to promote John Morton's program to encourage high school students to consider entering the trades. It's a wonderful cause, part of why I'm _doing_ this thing in the first place, and I'd like to help support it, if I can."

His wife's blue eyes grew wider and wider as he spoke ever so earnestly. "You really wouldn't mind?" she managed to ask after swallowing several times to kick start her voice. "It's... awfully suggestive."

But he answered with an eloquent, "Pfft. Only because of some old clichés. Besides, this isn't the same. I'm _doing _something, here, not just flaunting my body for the camera, on purpose."

"But you know that a lot of people might read more into it."

He shrugged. "I suppose they will. But I know and you know that I wasn't _trying _to make them feel... er... aroused, any more than I do when I put on my costume to go out and defend the city. If just a few young people see this and think that it makes working in a trade look good, then it'll be worth it — won't it?" He now sounded doubtful, wondering if he'd just become a terrible hypocrite.

Roxanne, however, smiled softly and leaned down to give him a warm kiss on his broad forehead. "It will. It sounds like I was taking the wrong approach to this, sweetie, and I'm sorry. You're right about the workingman aspect, so maybe I should've been taking you to sites where you could try new jobs, or we could get pictures of you working here in the Lair, or out on patrol."

The smile that touched the former villain's lips when she kissed him widened. "That's okay, I do understand now what _you _were wanting to do, and that has its merit, too. You wanted people to see me the way you do — to appreciate what I am physically. But I hadn't really considered _this_ angle, I don't know why. And now that I have, I'd like for you to use this picture in the calendar, if you think it's good enough, along with one of the costume shots from the fair." He bit his lower lip, now uncertain in a different way. "_You _don't mind... do you?"

His answer came in the form of two arms suddenly wrapped around his neck and the biggest kiss he'd ever imagined. He was more than a little dizzy and breathless by the time Roxanne broke the kiss, smiling brightly, eyes shining. "Mind? Not one little bit do I mind!" she promised. "I'm just _so_ glad to hear that you finally understand what I was wanting to do, not just going along with it _because_ I wanted it!"

The lavender flush that blossomed across his cheeks and ears had a charming bashfulness to it, especially given how very and unusually mature he'd just been behaving. "Ah... well..." he stammered slightly. "I think that you wanting it is a perfectly good reason — it's good enough for me, most of the time, that is, I can be a stubborn twit, sometimes, a lot of the time, I guess, but I don't ever want to disappoint you, and I suppose I do, too much, but—"

She shut him up using the method that was always guaranteed to work. He was a breathless but very happy little puddle of mush smiling at her as he slowly regained his capacity to breathe after she ended the kiss. "You're stubborn, but you're not a twit, and the only way you could seriously disappoint me nowadays would be by going back to being the selfish, insensitive jerk you could be when you were trying to be evil. Not that I'm saying you _never _disappoint me, it just never gets that serious, now. Which is a good thing, and I hope I never seriously disappoint you."

"No, never!" was his instant insistence. "You're perfect!" As he said The Word, he unconsciously winced. Roxanne saw it, and laughed.

"Okay, I guess I've been giving you grief about my 'perfect' ideas for the calendar," she admitted. "I didn't know it was getting so bad that I'd caused you to have a Pavlovian response to it! No more of that, I promise."

Now, Megamind looked concerned. "No more ideas? But we don't have enough pictures, do we?"

"Not quite," she confirmed. "I just meant no more cajoling or tricking you into doing things you're not comfortable with by saying it'll be perfect. I was thinking that for most of the other things, we can keep it simple. The only other set piece I have in mind is for the December shot, a kind of holidays thing, and Minion says he'll need a few days to get everything ready for it."

The ex-villain worried at his lower lip again. "You're not thinking of having me lie on a bear rug in front of a fireplace — with the emphasis on _bare, _are you?"

Roxanne once more turned a brilliant shade of red, remembering what had been the most embarrassing shot in her own calendar. And while she hadn't _really _been naked, the photographer had been able to make it appear as if she'd been very nearly so. While she knew that her husband enjoyed that picture, she also knew that it was something even he kept very private.

Through her abashed blush, she still smiled, caressing his cheek. "I'd enjoy something like that — for myself, but not for the calendar. When I made mine, I may have been a local celebrity with a reputation to uphold, but I wasn't the city's defender. My image could take the ribbing and even the flak I got for letting them use that picture, though I wouldn't let them do something like that now! You need to be more careful than I did, because you're more than just a celebrity, you're a symbol. So if you want, we can do a picture like that just for me, but I promise, it won't go anywhere but into my private scrapbook. I have something a lot nicer in mind for the calendar."

One elegant black eyebrow lifted. "Is it perfect?"

She smirked. "I think so, and so does Minion, but we both want it to be a surprise — a nice one, I promise. Until he's ready, we have the other five months to take care of. What would you think of taking one of the shots at the botanical gardens? They working on a big display of tropical flowers in one of their greenhouse buildings right now, I've heard it's gorgeous, and I was thinking it might be nice to use for February, with Valentine's Day and all that..."

* * *

><p>Over the next four days, while Minion was hard at work preparing for the calendar's <em>piece de resistance<em>, Roxanne and Megamind took care of five out of six of the remaining months, plus an extra shot for the calendar cover. One was done using Wayne's Harley and the custom biker leathers a grateful reformed ex-con had made for the blue hero who had become his role model; the photos were taken out on one of the open shoreline roads north of Metro City, with the city itself as a part of the backdrop scenery. At least one shot _had _to be in Megamind's trademark costume, and it was taken during a visit to a local primary school, where he was a guest helping to teach the very young kids about safety. The gaggle of awed and happy little faces turned up toward him like sunflowers basking in the sun was positively adorable.

Because it was still well before winter and it didn't feel quite right to not have a single shot featuring one of the area's most common winter features — snow — Roxanne had cajoled her boss at the station into letting them use one of the old studios that was due for a complete overhaul and remodeling. She'd gotten the set decorators to do it up as a park-like scene with pine trees, and then had Wayne bring in enough snow from northern Canada to make it look like one of the local parks in winter. She then had Megamind wear the version of his uniform that had been designed for the cold months of the year — a strikingly different outfit that was still very much in the blue hero's flamboyant style. Wayne had stuck around out of curiosity (and to provide some occasional snow flurries with a spray bottle and his super breath), and somehow, a snowball fight started up between the two. They both blamed the other, but it wound up being a marvelous photo opportunity, the two former enemies now playing together and obviously having a great time of it.

They did indeed take a trip to the Scott Arboretum, the botanical gardens Lady Scott had started many years ago as a part of the Beautify Metro County campaign and still supported with generous annual funding. Inside one of the greenhouses, the botanists were preparing all the plants that would be used in an annual floral display during the fall and winter months, celebrating not only the holidays but reminding visitors that spring was coming, even when the green of summer was gone, the trees were leafless, and the region was buried in ice and snow. Megamind had never seen so many different and colorful varieties of flowers, especially not in one place, and his natural curiosity and eager excitement blossomed like a flower all its own. It wasn't at all difficult for Roxanne to capture a wonderful shot of him simply enthralled by the senses-stimulating sights and scents all around him.

The last two shots were captured around the Lair, and were pure serendipity. One was of Megamind and an excited gaggle of brainbots that had pounced on him in a greeting that was also them begging for him to play. They'd just come home after the day at the arboretum, and Minion had been too busy to indulge them with play, so they were bored and restless and eagerly jumped on Daddy like a pile of puppies before he'd taken two steps out of the car. Rather than rescue him, Roxanne had laughed and pulled out her camera.

The other shot was a candid one of Megamind at work that evening, not on anything huge and spectacular, but simply lost in his thoughts at his drafting table. One could see his inventive mind busily at work in his expression and his eyes, and it was a side of him the public never saw but that Roxanne felt they should.

During breakfast on the final day of the shoot, Minion asked if the couple wouldn't mind leaving the Lair until that evening, as he was almost done with his preparations for it but needed the time to do all the set-up, which he wanted to be a surprise. Roxanne was perfectly willing to cooperate, since she could spend the day at the station catching up on things so that she'd be ready to go back to work tomorrow, but Megamind was a bit huffy about it.

"What do you expect me to do?" he demanded testily. "Spend the entire day patrolling, or sitting in the park feeding _piggons?"_

"Pigeons," Minion corrected, though he knew his ward was likely mispronouncing it on purpose out of annoyance. Ever since Roxanne had mentioned the surprise to him, Megamind had been trying to ferret it out like a kid before Christmas, with no success. "And you _could_ stay here, sir — _if _you wouldn't try snooping. I know you, you would. So it's just easier if you go somewhere else and stay out of trouble."

The ex-villain grumbled over the too-honest observation, then brightened with an idea. "What if I used the Teacher? I know my schedule doesn't call for me to move to the next section of my current area of study until next week, but I could always pick up one of the easier things, something cultural or historical. That's not likely to send me off the deep end, wanting to hurry ahead, and it would give me something to do..."

"For about three hours, maybe two if it's something easy like you're suggesting," Roxanne pointed out. She knew as well as he did that unless it was an advanced area of a very complex subject, Mykaal's extraordinary mind absorbed the lessons so quickly, he didn't even need half a night to finish a session. It was a point of both astonishment and embarrassment to her, astonishment for the incredible efficiency of her husband's unique brain, embarrassment because what he could learn in three hours took her closer to twelve, three days or more if the subject was even moderately more advanced by current Earth standards — and yet for a Terran human, her brain was _very_ efficient. When Megamind had allowed Bernard the privilege of using the Teacher to learn about the history of his homeworld, the curator had been under for over sixteen hours, and he wasn't by any means stupid. When Wayne had finally acquiesced to using the device only a few weeks ago, he'd been under for nearly an entire day, much to his chagrin. He wasn't stupid, either, but his intelligence was only modestly above average and his synaptic functions were apparently quite different from those of both Terran and Ayalthan sapients.

Roxanne sighed, seeing the hopeful look on her husband's face. "I don't suppose that it would do any harm — but how much time _do_ you need, Minion?"

If the fish had had a chin, he would've been scratching it. "More than that, six hours at the very least. It might work out okay, but—"

The alarm from the city security monitors chose that moment to go off. A display of whatever crisis had set off the alarm automatically lit up the kitchen's television screen, inset in the wall above the refrigerator. "Major industrial fire on the 63rd floor of Metro Tower," Megamind noted, grimacing. "Right under the condominium levels. Didn't the idiots who decided which tenants should go where ever see _The Towering Inferno?_"

"Well, sir, at least when you rebuilt it, you did put in a lot of improvements to the emergency systems," Minion consoled him as additional information scrolled across the bottom of the screen, indicating that the fire department as well as Wayne had been notified and both were already on their way.

The ex-villain made an even more disgruntled face as he quickly finished his coffee before heading out. "Which half the tenants managed to deliberately break inside the first year when they didn't like the alarms going off because they couldn't be bothered with cleaning and properly maintaining their own appliances and machinery. Wayne will make sure the most serious fires are taken care of, but that high up, the emergency services can probably use some help looking for damage that could cause secondary fires to flare up. If the affected area is too big, even Wayne will need some help with evacuations. Send groups one through five of the search and rescue bots to the scene, along with any available emergency repair bots in the area. I'll head over and see what I can do to help."

"Should I come with you?" Minion asked, not quite sure if he was correctly understanding what his boss was implying.

Megamind paused to glance at the screen's data before heading into the hallway. He shook his head. "It doesn't look too bad, mostly just messy grunt-work, but if I need you, I promise I'll call."

"Be careful," Roxanne called after him, blowing him a kiss. She wasn't really worried, knowing how much he felt he had to lose, now that his life was so much better than it had been, but she figured it never hurt to remind him. Megamind knew her ritual, paused on the threshold long enough to catch her kiss and send it back, his promise that he'd return safely, even if he had to rely on a rescue from his former foe to do it.

* * *

><p>It was, as the Blue Defender had predicted, mostly several hours of messy grunt-work, after first evacuating those who had been injured in the lab explosion that had started the fire, then helping to remove those who had been trapped to safety. To Megamind, that was the exciting part of the job, being able to help in a dangerous situation so that the emergency personnel could move in to do their work more safely. Wayne — still carrying out his five years of community service that had been part of his court-appointed reparation for the hoax he'd perpetrated against the city by faking his death — stayed around to assist Megamind and brainbots while they worked on the messy clean-up, doing repairs to the most damaged areas so that the emergency crews could work without fearing that some part of the building would collapse on top of them.<p>

The once-odd sight of the city's former superhero working amiably with its former supervillain was only marginally less strange than seeing Wayne — who insisted on being only Wayne or Mr. Scott to the civilians, not Metro Man — deferring to Megamind as if he was in charge.

Technically and legally speaking, he _was _in charge. The more open-minded judges on the board that had determined Wayne's punishment had found a certain poetic justice in putting the city's new hero in the position of authority when it came to monitoring Wayne's public service, since the former hero had not only used his ex-nemesis as the fall guy in his hoax, but had been largely responsible for him turning to villainy to begin with. As they had finally made their peace with one another and had been working on building an actual friendship by the time Wayne openly confessed to all he'd done, they were both amused by the judges' decision, and did their best to make it work as had been intended.

True, every once in a while, Megamind couldn't help rubbing the big lug's nose in their altered positions — most often by referring to himself as Wayne's parole officer — but for the most part, he genuinely appreciated the help. It allowed both him and Minion more free time for their lives outside of hero work, and showed Wayne that he really should've been nicer when they'd first met all those years ago, if for no other reason than to lighten his own workload. For his own part, Wayne took it all in stride, and even found enjoyment in being able to help people when help was truly needed, rather than as the worst enabler ever born.

The big difficulty of the job was its sloppiness, the muck and mire of smoke and soot and water and flame-retardant foam. The help of the brainbots cut down on the amount if direct contact the living rescuers needed to make with the grime, but didn't fully eliminate it. By the time he felt confident that the serious dangers were dealt with enough for the emergency crews to move in — a thing Megamind was very conscious of, not wanting these trained professionals to feel useless, nor for himself to become burned out simply because he wanted to hog all the glory when it was absolutely unnecessary — the blue hero was tired, though in a good way. He really wanted to just go home, get out of his now grungy costume, and take a good long soak in the master bath's whirlpool tub to get rid of a few tired aches and to clean up his begrimed body.

But when he approached the Lair and headed for the hoverbike hangar that was entered through a holographically protected opening in the now finished rooftop observatory dome, the signal triggering it to open was answered with a blunt _unable to comply. _Megamind tried again and again, with the same response, or lack thereof. Annoyed, he activated his comm. "Minion, something's wrong with the hangar doors, they're not opening."

The ichthyoid's chipper voice answered at once. "Oh, the doors are fine, sir, I forgot to tell you that I'd be putting them on lockdown while I get everything set up in the hangar for this last photo session. Take the bike in on the garage level, I've already told Sprocket and the maintenance bots to be ready for you down there."

His partner made a face at the inconvenience. "You might've warned me," he grumbled. "I hope you haven't shut down the plumbing, too, because I plan to take a nice, long bath..."

"No, sir, the plumbing's fine. But you'll have to use the facilities down on the ground floor or in the basement."

Megamind's scowl deepened. "Why? You can't be using both the roof _and_ the living quarters for one simple picture!"

"Not for the set, no, but some of the things the brainbots are still working on are on the living floor, and I don't want you to accidentally see something and spoil the surprise. C'mon, sir, it's just this once, and I know you'll like it. And if it's any consolation, Mrs. Roxanne isn't going to get to see any of this any sooner than you do."

It didn't cure the ex-villain's grouchies to know that he wasn't being singled out, but it did help, at least a little. "Oh, all right, I'll humor you just this once — but only because I didn't find out by slamming into the dome, thinking the holoprojection was active! Have one of the brainbots bring down some comfortable house clothes for me, and send Buck to pick up my worksuit, it's going to need a thorough cleaning just to get the sooty stink out of it."

One could hear the bright and cheery grin in Minion's voice. "Will do, sir, and thanks for being such a good sport. I was hoping you'd be okay with this, so I had Madeleine and her helpers come up with a special dinner for tonight, just as a sort of thank you."

That promise went a lot farther to soothe the tired hero's ruffled feathers. With an only slightly grumpy acknowledgment, Megamind guided the invisibly cloaked hoverbike into the Lair's garage level, where he was indeed greeted by Sprocket, the head brainbot for hoverbike maintenance, and his crew.

As they took charge of the deactivated bike after Megamind dismounted, Buck and the various other bots who cared for Daddy's heroic garb arrived, one carrying the requested set of comfortable house clothes. Button and Snap and the quick-change crew appeared as well, and soon the sooty blue genius was out of his damp and dirty costume and into a soft black robe and slippers, ready to go clean up.

One of the newest household bots floated along behind him, carrying Daddy's clean clothing as the former villain headed for the washroom in the basement, which at least had a tub he could soak in rather than just a shower for emergencies. The little brainbot was one of the smaller but very quick-thinking models similar to Madeleine; Roxanne had dubbed him Alfred, after Alfred Pennyworth of Batman fame, for his habit of quietly following Megamind around the living quarters to pick up after him, fetch and carry personal items for him, and in general do the many little things that a devoted valet would do.

Megamind wasn't sure if it was Minion or Alfred who had anticipated his desire to take a bath rather than a shower after the hours spent at the scene of the fire, but when he got to the washroom, he found a pile of clean towels and a little basket of his favorite bath supplies already waiting for him. At the moment, he didn't really care. If Minion had done it, he'd thank his old friend later, and if Alfred had done it, he was glad that the bot had had the initiative to save Minion the need to interrupt what he was doing to cater to his cranky grown-up ward.

Well, he'd been talking about assigning one of the brainbots to do for him all the personal little things that Pinky now did for Roxanne, and if Alfred was attempting to audition for the role, Megamind was currently inclined to give him the job. He was especially in favor of it after Alfred drew Daddy's bath at just the right temperature, made sure his robe and slippers and other clothes were neatly set out, well away from the tub's splash zone but ready for him when he wanted them, then went and fetched him a cup of hot cocoa and some fresh cookies from the kitchen to give him the boost in energy and the touch of comfort the hero often needed following an afternoon of hard work.

He was really a very good little bot, Megamind decided as he finished his snack while Alfred gently but thoroughly scrubbed those nuisancy parts of his back he could never quite seem to reach well enough to get properly clean. He definitely preferred Roxanne's help with this sort of thing, but when she wasn't available or he didn't feel right imposing on her or Minion, Alfred could be most helpful. He'd have to discuss it with his wife and partner later, in case the latter had other, better uses for the young bot, or the former thought he mightn't get along well with the omnipresent Pinky. He leaned back in the tub when Alfred was done, luxuriating in the warm, relaxing waters, and he didn't even notice when he drifted off to sleep.

It was Alfred nudging him politely that wakened him just as the water was on the verge of becoming uncomfortably cool. The bot hovered there with a big, fluffy towel and an apologetic little bowg, waiting to see if Daddy might be annoyed by his presumption. "It's all right, Alfred," he assured the little bot as he accepted both the assistance and the timely warning that he would soon get cold and pruney if he remained in the tub. "Thanks for getting me out before I turned into a wrinkled lump of ice. Does Minion still have the upper floors barricaded against us intruders?"

Alfred gave both an affirmative bob and a sympathetic bowg. He adroitly helped Daddy dry off, then assisted him unobtrusively in getting dressed even as he drained the tub, collected the damp towels and bath things, and tidied the room even though other housekeeping bots would soon come in to do a more thorough cleaning. Megamind kept a covert eye on him, and decided that he would definitely give the little guy the job as his valet, barring objections from his other housemates. When he was finished dressing and Alfred was done with his other chores, the bot discreetly plucked at one of Daddy's sleeves, gently encouraging him to follow. Being otherwise happy with the service, Megamind did not object, and complied.

Alfred led the blue hero to his work area behind the red curtain, where he found Roxanne sitting in his big executive chair with her unshod feet propped up on the edge of the drafting table, her computer on her lap. She smiled when she saw her freshly scrubbed and relaxed husband being led by the polite little brainbot. "Hi, sweetie, I'll be finished in just a sec. And thanks, Alfred, I think I can take it from here."

Megamind smirked as Alfred quietly withdrew. "Don't tell me: Minion banned you from the rest of the Lair, too."

The reporter brushed her bangs from her eyes as she quickly typed in the last part of whatever she was working on. "I wouldn't exactly say 'banned,' but he did make it pretty clear that I'm not supposed to go up until we get the all-clear." She looked up then, her blue eyes warm with the loving relief of seeing that her husband had returned from his hero work in one piece. "I saw the reports on the fire and explosion, looked pretty messy. You okay?"

He bent down to press a kiss to the top of her head, lingering to nuzzle and enjoy the scent of her silky hair. "Fine, nothing that a good bath and a short nap couldn't cure. If you and Pinky and Minion don't have any objections, I think I'm going to appropriate Alfred to be my little helper upstairs."

Roxanne grinned as she pulled him down for a proper welcome home kiss. "I think that's what Minion's been hoping you'd do," she said after releasing him. "After all, wasn't he the one who had him painted up in black gloss with the blue lightning bolts on the sides? Alfred _looks _like he was designed just for you, and I'll bet you anything Minion went and tweaked his initial programming when you weren't looking, hoping the little guy would do exactly what he's been doing."

Megamind had to admit that he hadn't really noticed, but then, he'd been very busy over the past year, improving the safety and efficiency of all the city's infrastructures, smoothing out a working relationship with Wayne now that the former superhero was his court-ordered on-call backup and assistant, learning all manner of new and exciting things from the Teacher and the massive amount of information that had been sent with him from his erstwhile homeworld, building his relationships with both Roxanne and Minion, seeing to the safety of all the city's citizens, and in general keeping up with all the things, big and little, that were a part of a super-genius superhero's complex life.

Roxanne was quite right; Alfred's behavior reminded Megamind very much of Torvenn, the unique little brainbot that Minion had designed and built all on his own for his lady friend, Astrid Kjørsvik. Alfred didn't have the same shape as the bot Minion had fashioned to resemble one of his own people, but his personality was quite similar in that he showed a higher degree of initiative and intelligence than the average brainbots, but was also exceptionally devoted.

Having made the connection, Megamind was suitably impressed, and appreciative. "Then I'll have to thank him for it later," he said with a touch of chagrin for his failure to notice the telltale signs sooner. "Do you have any idea what he's up to?" He jerked one thumb ceilingward, indicating the floors from which Minion had barred them.

"Some," his wife said as she closed the laptop and set it aside. "But not as much as I thought I should. I gave him the idea, told him what I had in mind, but I think he liked it so much, he just took the ball and ran with it, way beyond anything I'd asked for. I'm okay with that, but I've got to admit, I'm just dying from curiosity to find out what he's gone and done with the suggestion. He even took all my camera equipment and told me not to worry about it, he'd have Blinkie and his crew do all the set-up."

The ex-villain cocked one eyebrow at her as he flashed her a roguish smile and sidled up close. "You'll tell me what you_ do_ know, Ms Ritchi, won't you?" he asked with a suave and seductive purr, leaning down to bring his face close to hers.

She gladly leaned up, kissed him soundly, then said, "No."

He pouted. "Spoilsport."

She laughed and gave him a quick peck on his protruding lower lip. "Yep. He told me he'd be done by suppertime and it's nearly that already, so you can use the next five or ten minutes to practice being patient."

The lip retracted and the pout became a merely grumpy frown. "Oh, all right, I'll wait. But I'll be glad when this is all over and done with. I never thought that having one's picture taken could be so _exhausting!"_

Still grinning, Roxanne patted his behind in a "there, there" gesture. "I warned you when we started this that I'm not a professional photographer. One of them could've had the whole thing done in a day or two. Though I have to say, I'm kinda glad you _did _ask me, it's been an interesting experience, and a lot of fun."

She crooked one finger, requesting that he bend down again so that she could whisper in his ear. "And if you're willing to do that bear rug picture for my private collection next weekend, we can do it in front of the fireplace in the den. You built the room with a nice mountain lodge kind of ambiance, and Minion's going to be gone all weekend to visit Astrid in Ypsilanti, if you tell him it's okay. He got the call from her just after you left this morning."

Megamind briefly flushed a bright lavender-pink at her suggestively sultry tone, remembering his first reactions to seeing the bear rug picture in her calendar, then grinned right back, and in a similar voice answered, "Only if you let me take a few pictures of _you_ for _my_ private collection."

She kissed the ear into which she'd been whispering and breathed, "Deal."

He shivered with delightful anticipation. "Then he can have to whole week off, if he wants. Wayne can fill in for him if I need help. He owes me, since I didn't _have_ to let him out of his community service long enough to take that gig in Branson."

"Sounds fair," Roxanne agreed, even though she knew Megamind was exaggerating. When it came to keeping to the rules governing his punishment, Wayne had been very good about not complaining or asking to be let off the hook very often. For someone who had faked his own death to get out of the superhero biz, he was taking this enforced return to it well, and even Megamind admitted it, though never to his face. That was his own bit of punishment, getting back at Wayne for persistently calling him by nicknames he'd repeatedly told him he didn't like.

Just then, Alfred and Pinky came floating back from the upper reaches of the Lair, bowging happily. "Does this mean we can come up now?" Roxanne asked, to be quickly answered by more bowging and the bobbing motions that were the brainbots' nods. "That's great, you won't have to worry about blowing a gasket trying to be patient," she told Megamind with a chuckle as she stood up.

He harrumphed, arms folded tightly across his chest. "I wouldn't've blown a _goosekit,_" he insisted as they followed the two bots not to the elevator for the living quarters, but to the platform lift that went up to the hangar under the dome on the roof. "I've just had my fill of surprises, lately, that's all."

With the ease of long practice, Roxanne slipped one hand into the tight knot of her husband's arms, sneaking it in at the elbow so that she could pull his upper arm into a soothing hug. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I know I've been pulling you out of your comfort zone a lot, this last week. Look on the bright sides: it's almost over, and I'm sure that Minion would _never _do any of the things I pulled on you. I'll do everything I can to make it up to you this weekend, I promise."

She could feel Megamind relax a bit, responding to both touch and words. "Well, it was all for a good cause," he allowed with an expansive sigh as the platform started upward, fortunately _not _at the quick-rise speed he and Minion had often used during the old evil days, just for fun. "Just as long as they don't ask me to do this year after year, I'm all right with it."

He cast a sidelong glance at his wife, who was rubbing her cheek against his shoulder in a way he found both comforting and quite enjoyable. "Did they ever ask you to do more than one of these things?"

Roxanne nodded, the motion causing part of her bangs to fall into her eyes; she smiled as Megamind absently brushed them back. "They wanted me to make another the next year, but with Wayne, a big Metro Man and His Girlfriend thing. I flat out said no."

The green eyes widened. "You did? But that was years before you and I got together...!"

She nodded again. "Yes, and even back then I kept telling everybody, including you, that I wasn't his girlfriend and never had been. Wayne tried to talk me into making the calendar with him using the whole 'it's for charity' line, but I knew he'd try to use the shoots as opportunities to cajole me into starting to date him for real. He _was _interested in me that way and I knew it, but I never felt more than friendship for him. Sometimes, not even that."

Megamind didn't really need any proof of that; he'd seen exactly the kind of friendship she and Wayne had shared when they'd gone to his hideout and he'd refused to help them defeat Hal. The only reason she'd taken as long as she had to start pummeling him was because she really was hoping to find a rocket launcher to shove up his behind and send him into orbit. The ex-villain found it amusing and annoying all at once — not Roxanne's part in it, which he now knew had been exactly what she'd always told him, and everyone else. He scowled for a moment, then broke into a positively wicked grin.

"You know, I've just decided: Minion really deserves to have a whole week to spend with Astrid, and you and I really haven't had more than a few hours of private, personal time to spend without worrying about emergencies since we took that break during the heat wave in July — and _that _only happened because I had that little problem with thermal shock. Wayne had his fun at his gig in Missouri, it would only be fair if you and I got the weekend completely off, while Minion's out of town."

Roxanne giggled, enjoying the suggestion as well as the lessening of tension she could feel in her husband's body. "He'll gripe, you know. He hates having to go back to hero work right after he's had a gig with his band."

Somehow, the wicked grin grew bigger and more wicked. "I know. But I wasn't the one who decided pulling a major hoax was an acceptable way to 'retire,' or having someone falsely accused of murder. And if he complains, I'll tell him the truth: it's payback for all the years he spent trying to connive you into being his girlfriend when you weren't interested. That should embarrass him enough to quit griping."

"No doubt," she answered with an impish grin of her own. "For a hero, you can still be very naughty, Mykaal."

"Only when the occasion calls for it," he defended.

She laughed and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry, sweetie, I like it. Don't ever change."

"For you, never. Unless you ask for it, of course."

They were both chuckling as the lift platform finally reached the rooftop "observatory." It was normal for the space above the lift to appear dark until the doors set into the roof opened and the platform actually entered the hangar, but when it moved into place now, everything remained dark — pitch black, in fact, until the glow of a handful of brainbot domes lit up and moved toward them, still a feeble light in the enormous black cavern beneath the dome.

"Minion?" Megamind called out, not nervous but definitely puzzled, as was Roxanne.

"I'm here, sir," the piscine's cheery voice came out of the darkness. "Sorry if you weren't expecting this, but if you'll just bear with me another minute, I'd appreciate it. Button and Snap and their helpers are coming to get you changed. I know you're curious to see what I've been up to, but if you would, please, just keep your eyes shut until I tell you open them. Oh, and that goes for you, too, Mrs. Roxanne, please."

In the faint light of the nearing brainbots, the couple exchanged glances, then shrugged their surrender. "Okay, Minion," Roxanne replied for the both of them. "You've got both of us _really _wondering what this is all about, so — whoa, wait a second, I'm Mommy, not Daddy! You should be changing _him, _not me...!"

"Agh, I'm sorry!" came the ichthyoid's apologetic voice. "I forgot to warn you, I thought it would be nice if you got into the spirit of this, too. I asked Blinkie and his crew to handle most of the picture taking so you could. Please don't say no, Mrs. Roxanne, Little Nipper and Splice and Needles worked very hard on your outfit, and I really think they'd be disappointed if you said no."

"Okay, okay!" the reporter conceded, giggling a bit as the working bots managed to accidentally brush a ticklish spot. "You really went all out with this, Minion, didn't you?"

They could hear the fish's toothy grin. "You bet! I was kicking myself for not thinking of doing something like this years ago, but then, I didn't have enough to work with until more recently. Are they finished yet?"

"Almost," was Megamind's reply, an odd note of puzzlement in his voice. "Good lord, Minion, did you remake the Black Mamba? I'm not looking, I swear, but some of this feels familiar."

"No, sir, not the Black Mamba," he was fervently assured. "You know that neither of us really want to reconstruct it. There are too many bad memories attached to it."

"Hmm, I suppose. You're right, the collar doesn't feel right for that, not as much weight and movement, and the gloves aren't leather. Then why _does_ this feel so familiar?"

"You'll find out in just a minute, sir. Have they finished yet?"

"Just about," Roxanne said, recognizing the familiar feel of final closures being made. "I — oh! Does this outfit come with jewelry?" she asked when something had been closed around her right wrist.

She heard a snort not far away. "If it does, then so does mine, same kind," Megamind informed her. "Okay, Minion, give. What's the deal here?"

"Something very special," his old friend assured him. "Do you still have your eyes closed?"

The ex-villain sighed. "Yes, and I think the bots are finished." That was confirmed by a chorus of bowgs from the brainbots, who were now withdrawing.

"Great! If you can both come straight forward about ten steps without opening your eyes, I promise you won't trip or run into anything."

Now, Megamind sniffed. "Don't you think this is carrying the surprise a little too far?"

"Nope," was Minion's instant reply. "It's all about presentation. You of all people should appreciate _that,_ sir."

The blue hero winced at the need for such a reminder, all but smacking himself in the face with one hand before dragging it down it. "Of course, how stupid of me not to notice! Sorry, Minion, carry on."

He could hear the relieved pleasure in his old friend's voice. "Thank you, sir." As the couple stepped off the platform, blindly, Megamind sent out one of his hands in search of the nearer of his wife's, found it, and laced his long fingers through hers. He found that they were both wearing gloves, but of a fabric so fine, he swore he could feel her skin through them, a distinctly different softness in contrast to the airy silkiness of the glove fabric. Roxanne didn't hesitate to accept, so hand in hand they moved forward, as Minion had requested. They could hear the lift behind them moving again, dropping down to allow the doors that sealed the floor where it entered to slide and lock back into place.

"That's good," Minion told them when they'd gone the requisite ten paces. "You can stop right there, it'll be just another few seconds..."

Something in his tone brought to mind the first time they'd used the dome, back when it had been nothing more than a crude fake observatory used in the last plot to destroy Metro Man. "If he tells us that all these delays and diversions are because something's warming up, I may have to kill him," Megamind muttered _sotto voce_ to Roxanne, who couldn't help but snigger at the memory. It had been a pretty awful day for many reasons, but some things were still amusing, especially in hindsight.

Happily, there were no more requests to wait. "Okay, you can stop right there. You can open your eyes now if you want, but I'll warn you, it'll still be dark. That'll change soon."

The couple found that it was indeed still dark, so dark that they couldn't see one another, even standing so close. Megamind made a frustrated noise and was about to say more when Roxanne suddenly said, "Wait! Do you hear that?"

The ex-villain closed his mouth again, sharpening his ears instead. At first, he could only hear their breathing, but he quickly became aware of another sound. It was moving water, but not the drips and gurgles one would expect in such an old building, outside the living quarters. It was more natural, yet wasn't the noise of waves on the lakeshore or rain on the roof. It was...

"That sounds like a waterfall," Roxanne said just as he thought the same thing. "Did you install a waterfall in the hangar?"

Megamind gave a small grunt of a laugh. "_I _didn't, but heaven only knows what that fish did! It could just be a recording to set the mood or — oh! _OH!"_

* * *

><p><em>To be concluded...<em>


	7. Absolute Perfection

_Author's Note: I'm sorry for the slight delay in finishing and posting this chapter after I promised to have it up quickly, but just after I posted chapter six, I sprained my back while working in the kitchen, and the next morning learned that one of my favorite authors and personal role models, Anne McCaffrey, had died. Anne became one of my biggest inspirations to truly become an author after I first read Dragonflight back in '68, and I count myself incredibly lucky to have had the honor of eventually calling her a friend. I will never forget the encouragement and words of wisdom she gave me, nor the laughter and the song, and the world seems just a little more empty now that she is no longer in it. But we who remain will always have the wonderful legacy of her books and all the characters and worlds she created to inhabit them, and by that, we are made richer. So thank you, Anne, until we meet again in the Time After._

_Now, on to the conclusion of this tale... and soon the beginning of the next!_

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<br>Absolute Perfection

What wrung the sudden, startled sound from Megamind wasn't the sound of the falling water; rather, it was prompted by what was slowly revealed when the lights above them brightened. But the illumination didn't come from ceiling fixtures or flood lamps mounted inside the dome or even a collection of brainbots; it came in the form of ribbons of glowing colors, very much like the aurora that sometimes lit the night skies in regions closer to the Earth's poles. The streams and curtains of soft colors danced in a dazzling display that fully held both Megamind's and Roxanne's enraptured attention — until they grew bright enough so that they could see their surroundings. The hangar and the observatory dome were gone, and in their place, they saw a wide and beautiful plaza, intricately made, circled by two tree and flower edged streams that came together at the head of the plaza, where the streams had been made by the splitting of the flow coming from a high, clear waterfall.

They were standing at the center of the great assembly place on Ayalthis, where Megamind's parents had brought him when he was four days old, to be Presented to all the Elders and many people of their world, and to receive the gift of his world's knowledge and civilization, reduced to the collection of data storage gems that would be sent with him, so that he might learn from them and ensure that his people were never forgotten.

Both he and Roxanne had seen this place when they'd used the Teacher to learn the reasons why Megamind and Minion and even Wayne had been sent to Earth. All the people who had crowded the plaza in the recording were not there, but otherwise, it was a perfect reproduction of a place that had been destroyed more than thirty-five years ago, right down to the sounds of rushing water and moving air and a distant bell-like chiming that grew and fell with the gentle wind.

"It's beautiful," Roxanne whispered, aware that it had to be some kind of holographic projection, but no less awed by it.

"It is," Megamind agreed most sincerely. He turned to his wife to say something more, then found his breath stolen. Roxanne heard his gasp and turned to see what might have caused it, and found herself rendered breathless as well.

The clothes Minion had made for them were exact and lovingly detailed reproductions of the formal ceremonial garb Mykaal's parents had worn on the day of his Presentation. Though both outfits had some traditional similarities — the high, upswept collar, long flowing lines that fell from shoulder to feet and beyond, fanning out on the paving stones around them — the styles were distinctly masculine and feminine, and made in the colors of the Families of each of his parents.

Roxanne's gown was in the colors of the Yareli, the Family of Megamind's mother, and were reminiscent of the colors of a peacock, greens and blues with touches of purples and gold. The upper part of the gown was smoothly fitted to her torso, but the skirts flared out at her hips, seeming almost like great, overlapping and downswept tails of the proud Terran birds. At the front, the hem came to the toes of her iridescent green slippers, then quickly lengthened and spread behind and around her like a glorious train. The sleeves were wide and flowing but dropped only to the elbow, where they split open to fall like diaphanous wings of green, covered with intricate patterns of blues and purples overlaid with an elegant tracery of gold. The gloves were blue but were so fine and thin, her pale skin was visible through them, and on her right wrist was a narrow bracelet, two bands of different colors twined together.

Roxanne didn't look close enough to see what those colors might be as she was far more intrigued by what her husband was wearing. The colors of the Family Thejhan could almost be called predictable, as they were similar to those Megamind had preferred ever since he'd shed the prison jumpsuits for costumes and clothing of own choosing. It was made in several different shades of blue ranging from pale sky to deep midnight, shimmering black, and bright silver, with traces of a green that was very close to the color of his eyes.

She could also see why he'd felt this might be a recreation of the Black Mamba when the bots had been getting him changed with his eyes closed. She'd only seen the drawings and a prototype for the whole outfit, the finished product having been reduced to tatters by the time she'd first seen him wearing it. The collar was tall, though not as broad as the batwing collar of his working gear, the form-fitting and apparently single-piece undersuit was solid black, and the sleeveless overtunic was split open in the front and swept down to the ground in much the same way as the hem of his last "evil cape" had done. The entire long tunic and the high collar were lined in a fabric that shimmered like silver frost. The outer shell was formed of narrow lengths of vivid sky blue fabric that were cleverly fitted around the torso, like the petals at the base of a lily closely furled; at mid-chest, the "petals" began to open, fanning out into nine slender rays. Their hue darkened to a dark blue at the tips, which lay like the points of a star spread wide on the floor around him. It was all worked with an overlay of fine silver and golden-green filigree, resembling the swirls of thin clouds against the sky, from midday to midnight. His above-the-elbow gloves, of the same translucent fabric as hers, were black, and on his right wrist was a thin bracelet identical to her own.

It seemed like forever before either of them could do anything but stare, overwhelmed by everything they were seeing. Megamind wasn't sure if he was actually the first to find his voice, but the next thing he was aware of hearing was himself saying, "You're beautiful!" and thinking how inadequate the word was to describe the reality.

Roxanne's smile only served to make her more so. "Don't take this the wrong way, sweetie, but so are you. Good lord, Minion, how did you _do _all this in just four days?"

The ichthyoid's chuckle was tinged with pride. "With the help of a _lot _of brainbots, and Sir."

Megamind was finally able to make his eyes blink. "Me? I had no idea what you were up to, how could I have helped?"

"By finding a way to transfer some of the images and information from that introductory data gem onto one of our computers. That let me make the patterns for the clothing so I could put about three dozen brainbots to work on the actual outfits while I did the programming for the active hologram of the plaza. I used the software you designed to help do it faster, but I'm afraid it's not quite perfect. You can still see shadows in some places where I took out the images of the people in the recording, and some parts of the images for the flowers and trees were copied and pasted from other areas. That's why I made it a little dimmer than the actual recording, the darkness makes the flaws less noticeable."

"I can't really see what you're talking about," Roxanne admitted, "so I think you covered the flaws very well. Aren't you going to join us?"

"You bet," the fish assured her. "I had Madeleine make a sort of picnic supper based on some of the cultural data Sir transcribed, I'll join you when she brings it up. In the meantime, Blinkie wants to get some more shots of just the two of you, if you don't mind."

"I'm okay with that," she replied, but hearing nothing from her husband, she stopped her search for the supposed flaws in their surroundings to glance at him. Megamind's head was down, his face turned away from her; his body language told her that something was amiss. "Mykaal?" she said gently, somehow aware that any other name would be out of place. "What's wrong?"

The only answer she received for a few moments was the shaking of his head. The gesture, however, wasn't one of dismissal, but merely asking her to wait. She did so, patiently, though she couldn't keep herself from reaching out to touch his arm in comfort. When she did so, he finally turned toward her again. In the dance of softly colored lights from above, she could see the tears on his face — but the expression beneath them was one of intense wonder, not sorrow.

"This is exactly where my parents were standing when I was Presented to the Elders," he said very quietly, almost struck dumb with awe. "These clothes Minion and the brainbots made for us are exactly what they were wearing. And..." He paused, his green eyes flicking about as if checking the accuracy of the thought. When they flicked back to Roxanne's face, they were dancing with delight. "And this is exactly where my parents were married, by their customs, a few years earlier."

He took her right hand in his own, his slender fingers sliding up to her wrist, where they touched the narrow bracelet. "This was my people's version of a wedding ring," he explained as his fingertips traced the two twined bands. "It was supposed to symbolize the couple and their Families, the two bands representing the people being married, the colors those of their Families."

The reporter's eyes widened, but with pleasure. "I don't remember any explanations of that from what I learned through the Teacher," she admitted.

Megamind shrugged as he used his other hand to brush away the dampness on his cheeks. "I suppose there were more details about such things for my benefit, and there were other things I picked up from the cultural studies I've done. The couple committing themselves to one another became part of each other's Family, though they shared the name of whichever one had... not exactly seniority, more like greater antiquity. The Thejhans had been around for a longer time than the Yareli, so my mother used my father's Family name. If the Families had been of the same age, they would've used both."

He paused again, realizing that he was starting to launch into a babble fit about Ayalthan marriage and social customs. "It's...amazing!" he finally said instead, looking not only at the two of them but at everything that appeared to be around them. "If I didn't know that it's all an illusion, I could almost let myself believe that we're actually there, on Ayalthis. It's been so long since I really _was_, and being so very young, I couldn't appreciate it, not the way I can now. I _saw _it then; I _understand_ it now."

Roxanne reached up and caressed his cheek with one hand, amazed by how she could actually feel his soft skin through the thin fabric of the glove. Later, she'd have to ask Minion what it was made of. "You have an imagination, sweetie — probably the biggest and most complex imagination of anyone who's ever been on this planet. Just for a little while, let the thinking part of you have a rest and let the feeling part take over. Because even if it's just a beautiful illusion that we'll eventually have to turn off to go back to reality, there's nothing wrong with us spending a few hours here. It might be just a fantasy, but it's also remembrance. Let your world live again in our imaginations — if not for yourself, then for me. I've never been there, and I've been wishing we _could _go there together, ever since I realized I wanted to be with you for the rest of our lives. You know so much of my world, but I know so little of yours. I'd love to experience it all, but since I can't have that, I want to enjoy this little taste of it now, with you."

There was something in her words or her tone or her expression that caused a tremendous response in the blue hero. It felt to him as if he had always been holding back something deep inside him, afraid to let it out or afraid to let it go, and had now been given permission to set it free. Roxanne saw it as a sudden change in his expression, from astonishment to intense delight and gratitude, and she had only a moment to appreciate it before he swept her up into his arms and spun her about as he kissed her with a loving and joyful passion she'd never before felt from him.

She indulged him most enthusiastically, and it was only when he'd set her back on her feet, still kissing, that some tiny corner of her mind flashed on the reason for his overwhelming response. She'd said that she accepted all that Megamind was many times, and she'd fully meant it; he'd come to believe her long ago, but it wasn't until now, in the surroundings of a place that appeared to be the world that was his birthplace that he could let go of the constant knowledge that they were on Earth, not Ayalthis, even if only for a little while. She had given him not only permission but encouragement to let this brief fantasy come fully to life inside him, and even more importantly, she'd made it plain that she wanted very much to be a part of it. It was more than mere words and thoughts now, and he embraced both her and the opportunity gladly and gratefully.

For once, Roxanne found herself the one being kissed totally breathless until all of her melted into a puddle of mush that she was sure couldn't have remained standing upright if Megamind hadn't been holding her in his arms. She suspected that when he ended the kiss, she was wearing a perfectly sappy expression that would've been perfectly suited for the swooning heroine on the cover of any of the sickly-sweet romance novels some women (and a few guys) she knew couldn't get enough of. And she couldn't bring herself to care one little bit, not when she opened her eyes to see the look of perfect loving joy glowing on her husband's face.

"Thank you," he said in the biggest sigh of happiness she'd ever heard.

To Roxanne, it felt like half an hour had passed with her simply enjoying that look and the warm closeness of him before she finally blinked and found enough breath in her body to ask, "What for?"

Megamind might've taken it as a rhetorical question, or just a stupid one, but he didn't. He laughed, then answered, "For being you, for being absolutely perfect! Thank you for taking the time to be my photographer, for trying to get me to do new things — for thinking of this!" He looked up and all around them, at the magnificent semblance of his lost homeworld, then at the even more magnificent reproductions of his parents' formal ceremonial clothing they both wore.

A new kind of awe crept into his expression. "_How _did you think of this?" he wanted to know, reluctantly taking one of his arms from around her to motion to their surroundings and themselves.

"I didn't!" Roxanne admitted, giggling for no discernible reason, other than her own pleasure at seeing Megamind so thoroughly ecstatic. "What I _did _think of came from something you said the day we went to the Renaissance Fair. You've been wearing nothing but Earth clothing and Earth styles and even Earth costumes — it just didn't seem fair that you shouldn't get to wear something from your own world, not when I wanted the calendar to help show different parts of the real you. I mentioned the idea to Minion, and I thought he'd throw together an outfit that was quick and dirty and simple. I _never _imagined he'd come up with all... _this!_"

"He is _definitely _the most fantastic fish ever," the ex-villain declared most emphatically. "Minion!" he called, just in case said fish wasn't nearby.

"Yes, sir?" The ichthyoid's reply did sound a bit more distant, as if he'd moved to another part of the hangar to give them privacy, but hadn't gone down to the living floor.

"Two weeks! You can have two weeks off to spend with Astrid — more, if you want! Spend the month in Ypsilanti, take her somewhere on vacation, a cruise around the world, anything!"

Minion's clear laughter blended nicely with the sounds of the waterfall. "Thanks, sir, but I'm not sure she can spare the time from her studies for an actual vacation right now. Though if you're okay with me spending more than just the weekend in Ypsilanti, I wouldn't mind, I can certainly help her with her coursework and other things."

Megamind spluttered. "Okay?" he echoed with a snort. "_Okay? _I'm more than just _okay _with it! Minion — Ootori — this is just... just... _extradorninary — _I mean _extraordinary! _Here I am, calling myself the Master of Presentation, and all this time, you were hiding _this _light under a bombshell!"

"Bushel," Roxanne corrected, wholly on reflex. "But I think you're right, hon. This really is incredible, Minion, and to think you pulled it all off in just four days...!"

"Ah..." There was an odd gurgling sound to the piscine's voice that was much like a human coughing and clearing their throat and stammering at the same time. "Well, I have to admit, I didn't do _all _of it in four days. I started working on the clothes about a month ago, when we were all invited to the city's Halloween Charity Ball. I thought it would be cool if we could all go dressed in a way that would be _really _unexpected, until the Ren Fair thing came up. But I was expecting to have another six weeks to work on these clothes, so I had to get more of the brainbots to help rush the job, and the whole holographic thing I _did _do in four days, but it's not perfect. So it isn't really all _that _incredible."

"Pish-tosh!" Megamind insisted, not allowing his friend to belittle the achievement. "It's fabulous, no matter _how _long it took or how many brainbots helped out! And since you mentioned outfits for _all _of us, I expect you to come out of hiding and let us see what you did for yourself!"

Roxanne heartily seconded that opinion, and Minion relented. "Okay, okay, I think Madeleine's almost finished, anyway, and she and her crew don't need my help to bring dinner up and carry things in."

After a few moments, they heard movement in another part of the hangar, footsteps coming nearer, but not from the heavy metallic feet of Minion's robot gorilla body. These were still firm but not as heavy, like the booted footfalls of a large man. A part of the illusory gardens surrounding the plaza rippled for an instant as he passed through the living holograms on their right, emerging precisely where one of the "bridges" crossed over the flowing stream.

They saw then that their fishy friend was in his more humanoid robot body, and was dressed in the formal ceremonial robes of one of the Elders of the Potrell. It was simpler in design than the formal attire that had been Megamind's parents', but was nonetheless striking, as it was as different from his normal appearance as could be. There were nine layers to the robes, the topmost being just shy of waist length, with each of the others slightly longer, the longest reaching down to a few inches above the floor. Each layer was also of a different color, but all in hues associated with the waters, as each represented one of the nine clans of the Potrell. The arrangement of the colors indicated to which clan the councilor belonged; Minion's clan, the Patomataa, had chosen a vibrant teal blue shot with silver to be theirs, as it most nearly matched the dominant color of the waters in the large river system that had been their ancestral home.

He was almost blushing when he explained. "When I took my turn using the Teacher last year, I found out that one of my grandparents had been the Elder representing our city on the Council, but I never met him since he died about five years before I was born. Since I _am _actually older than both of you, even if it's just by a few months, I didn't think it'd be too presumptuous to dress up as an Elder. It's not as fancy, but this body is closer to the kind of android bodies my parents used, and, well..."

"It's perfect, Minion," Roxanne assured him, admiring his handiwork.

Megamind vigorously nodded his agreement. "Of course it is! After all, isn't this supposed to be a picture for the holidays?"

"That's what Mrs. Roxanne wanted, though I really don't know if this qualifies..."

"Why not? The holidays are supposed to be about family and friendship and all that, so this couldn't be more suitable! After all, you're my brother and my helper, not my slave. The people looking at the calendar won't recognize any of this, but at least they'll be able to see that you're my equal, not my servant — a true _min'yaaun_."

Minion's big amber eyes blinked. "You mean, you want me to be in the picture, too? But I made this for the costume ball, not for the calendar!"

Roxanne patted his arm. "Minion, Mykaal's right. If this is supposed to be in the spirit of the holidays, then it _should _show family, _all_ our family. Nothing could be more appropriate."

"Or more perfect," Megamind added. "After all, Ayalthis was your homeworld, too, and our peoples were close, in both work and friendship. You belong in whatever picture we use. Now, get over here, you idiotic ichthyoid, before I have the brainbots drag you here!"

A distant but nearing chorus of bowgs seemed to chime in their agreement with Daddy's sentiments as Madeleine and her group of helpers swept in with their special supper. The first wave of brainbots came bearing such things as rugs and cushions to spread out on the hard floor to make the quasi-picnic more comfortable. These were ordinary items that Minion and his brainbot sewing crew had embellished and altered to better suit the illusion that this was another planet, not Earth. Madeleine and her "staff" came next and brought the meal in containers that also suited the general theme, along with plates and cups and utensils that were unusually fitting.

As she surveyed the scene they were setting up, Roxanne was impressed. "I have no idea if any of these things are accurate to your cultures," she admitted. "But they're beautiful. Did you manage to find recipes from your homeworld, too, Minion?"

"Not exactly," the piscine admitted as he watched the bots do their work, ready just in case there was some squabble or mishap. "I had to do a lot just based on what things _looked_ like, I really only had visual impressions from what I saw, like a scene from history book or movie that showed people talking over a meal. It wasn't a lot to go on, to be honest." He said that last with a small, wistful sigh.

Megamind understood what he was thinking as he gave Roxanne a hand to settle on one of the cushions. "I should stop being so selfish, looking only for things that interest me in all those data crystals," he said, half in apology, half kicking himself for not thinking.

Minion attempted to shrug it off. "Don't be silly, sir, they did send them with you for a reason..."

"To be _used_," the blue hero pointed out, "and not just by me. We shared the same homeworld, Minion, and even if you can't learn all of the technical things I can, you should still have access to the things that _do _interest you."

The fish opened and closed his mouth several times, beginning to say something then changing his mind. Finally, he nodded. "Thank you," he said simply. "I have to admit, I _did _want to ask you about some of the cultural areas for both of our peoples, but I didn't know if I should. You have to be the one to access them first and transfer the information, and you barely have enough time to learn all the things you want, what with all your other work..."

If Megamind could've put his hand over his friend's mouth to shush him, he would've. Instead, he simply raised that hand in a halting gesture. "It's not an imposition," he declared flatly. "As a matter of fact, I've been going over an idea I had for unlocking some of the less complex storage crystals, so you and Roxanne and maybe a few other people can start learning from them. I know how to make a simpler version of the Teacher, now, and I even think I could modify it to compensate for the different abilities of each student, to speed things up or slow them down to increase the efficiency of the learning process. If nothing comes up, I could start on the project right away, and—"

Roxanne reached up, grabbed his elbow, and unceremoniously yanked him down onto the cushion beside hers. "Later, sweetie," she commanded, though not unkindly. "Let's just sit down and enjoy everything that Minion and the brainbots worked so hard to get just right for us, okay? Whatever it is, dinner smells delicious!"

Her husband smiled sheepishly as he pulled himself into a more dignified sitting posture. "Okay, you're right, as usual. Let the feasting commence! And for heaven's sake, sit down and join us, Tori, or you'll spoil the whole effect!"

Minion grinned happily. "Just as soon as I make sure the brainbots didn't forget anything, sir," he promised.

Megamind started to say something, only to have it stopped by his wife's hand over his mouth. "Shush," she chided. "Just let him do things his way, and it'll be fine. By the way," she added, dropping her voice and her hand, "it may not show a lot of skin, but I think that outfit is _really_ hot on you. I'm not sure it works as well on my body type, but it _definitely_ works for yours!"

"Of course it does," he preened, his cheeks coloring only a tiny bit at the unexpected compliment. "It was designed by people built pretty much the same way I am. And you're still beautiful — though you'll have to excuse me if I don't say you're hot. That'd be _way_ too creepy, since you're wearing my mother's clothes. But as soon as Minion has a chance to do a little research and design something just for you...!" He growled seductively as he leaned over to nuzzle the line of her jaw above the elegantly flared collar.

Roxanne giggled, enjoying his playfulness, and promised herself that she'd do everything possible to help Minion make that new outfit as soon as he could, maybe several different outfits for different occasions, just to see the joy it would give Mykaal to see his lady love dressed in the fashions of _his _people for change — and _not _as his mother. In fact, she knew some people with connections to the fashion world, and she suspected that if she dropped a little hint in the right ears after the calendar was released, they'd be hearing requests to see more of these styles that were truly from another world so the designers could incorporate some elements of them into their own.

And if she could do that for him...

Roxanne's thoughts were sidetracked when Minion rejoined them, cheerfully taking his place in this most unusual little picnic that he'd arranged. Madeleine and her assistants came to serve them like a flock of floating, glowing, bowging birds, and while the trio ate and talked and laughed and simply enjoyed this imaginary visit to a world long gone — the shimmering streams of light overhead, the reflected sparkles on the waterfall, and the glittering brainbot domes lending the scene a festive, holiday air — Blinkie and several other bots under his direction, cleverly hidden within the illusion, captured the event both for the sake of charity, and for posterity.

* * *

><p>The finished calendar was due to be released in early November, shortly after the Halloween ball that the threesome decided to attend wearing the outfits from their homeworld that Minion had made. They caused a tremendous sensation among the other attendees, most of whom had been expecting something more macabre or ghoulish from the city's former supervillain.<p>

The suggestion to wear them rather than the period garb had actually been Roxanne's. She felt that all the hard and incredibly intricate work that Minion and his helpers had done shouldn't be tucked away in a closet to be used on some nebulous "whenever" occasion, especially not in favor of costumes that were more commonplace, and in her case largely borrowed. She'd made the suggestion on the same night that they'd taken the final pictures for the calendar, which delighted Minion, as it gave him enough time to come up with an outfit for Astrid that complemented his own.

Megamind couldn't help but tease him about this being the first time his piscine guardian/brother was going to show up at a public function with a real date, but he finally demonstrated the good sense not to carry the ribbing too far. The blue hero was admittedly happy that Minion had found a lady who cared for him as much as he cared for her, and who accepted him just as he was, without condition.

The calendar was released on the Tuesday after Halloween; that Friday, Roxanne returned home from work with an oddly secretive smile on her face. It had been a busy week for all of them, Roxanne because she was now doing more work in the way of interviews and in-depth investigative reporting for the network's national weekly news magazine, the partners-in-crimefighting because "business" usually picked up around Halloween, and this year had been no exception. They'd been successfully handling the assortment of crooks and would-be villains who slithered out for the holiday, and were finally getting enough of a break to do some much needed maintenance on their battle-battered equipment.

Roxanne found them in the garage area, carefully doing repairs on the poor abused spiderbot, which had taken a beating during their run-in with a group of gang-related troublemakers who liked to get creative with explosives. Megamind, hanging upside down while welding something on the deactivated bot's underbelly, saw Roxanne and waved a quick hello before turning back to finish the job. She was patient, and by the time her attendant brainbots had all her things in hand, the repair was done and Megamind was climbing down to greet her.

"Rough day?" she asked after a brainbot had taken away his welding mask. He had the various smells of the machine shop about him, but not overwhelmingly, and Roxanne had long since gotten used to them. She wiped a smudge of something sooty from his nose before kissing it.

"Oh, not too bad," he said easily as he snagged a clean shop towel from Alfred to wipe off his face before giving his wife a more proper welcome home kiss. "I think we've seen the worst of the Halloween hoodlums, it's actually been quiet for a change. We had a big backlog of repair work to get through, but we've gotten quite a lot done today. Isn't that right, Minion?"

The ichthyoid popped up from where he'd been bent over, working in the cockpit of the big bot, and waved a cheery hello to Roxanne. "Yes, sir, we've taken care of the worst of it. All that's left is the simple stuff the brainbots _can't_ handle, and none of that is really critical. Did you have a good day, Mrs. Roxanne?"

"A wonderful day, Minion, thanks for asking." She gave Megamind a smile to let him know that she wasn't upset that he hadn't asked first, a smile that was soon joined by an impish twinkle in her blue eyes. "And I have great news for you, Mr. Superhero: you set a record today!"

The broad blue brow crinkled as his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "A record? For what? Handling the longest and most annoying string of pointless crimes in Metrocity history?"

She chuckled, knowing that these days, he used his deliberate mispronunciation of the city's name most often when confronted by examples of how monumentally stupid its denizens could be. "No, though I'll have to have our research department look into that, it might actually be true. I heard from Lyn Durant at the Metro United Charities today. Every outlet carrying your calendar has contacted him over the last two days, and this morning, it became official: it completely sold out in less than four days, and the vendors are all asking for a second printing."

Megamind's mouth fell open only slightly more widely than his eyes, and the only sound he could seem to make was a breathy, "Eeeeeep..."

Minion had no such problem. "Really! Wow, that's just great! I know that it looked wonderful from the proofs we saw before it went to press, but I didn't think it'd go over _that _well!"

Roxanne nodded, giving her husband a minute to collect himself. "Neither did I, to tell the truth, but after all those society and fashion page and news articles raving about the outfits we wore to the Halloween Ball, I guess there was a _lot_ of interest stirred up — and not of the negative kind, either. From some of the things I've been picking up off the grapevine, it sounds like half the people who live around here got so used to having obvious aliens in their midst, they never stopped to think that there might be whole cultures and civilizations that were lost when your planets were destroyed. Seeing something like the clothes we wore to the ball was sort of an eye-opener to them, and it's gotten some people thinking that _alien _can mean more than just unfamiliar or scary. It can be that, but it can also be new and beautiful."

In the course of her little explanation, Megamind managed to crank his jaw shut, pump some air back into his lungs, and blink to get his almost-dried eyes working again. "Really?" he squeaked, clearing his throat before trying again. "Really? You mean, all I needed to do to get people to accept me is let them see what people on my planet wore for special occasions?"

Roxanne chuckled again as she tweaked his chin and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Not quite, sweetie. First had to come knocking off the villain bit and making amends, _then_ you could get them to start realizing that maybe they should've been thinking about the good things you might have to offer everyone and not just about taking you apart in a lab or using your big brain for their own purposes."

After he'd taken a few moments to let this sink in, Megamind's expression quirked into one of skepticism. "I have a hard time believing it could be that easy," he insisted.

She shrugged. "Well, so do I, but change does have to start somewhere, and this might be a somewhere we just never considered before. It's... accessible. Not everyone can appreciate the scientific and intellectual things you have to offer, but everybody wears clothes and can relate to them in some way."

"That's true," Minion piped up from where he was still perched atop the deactivated spiderbot. "I'm a fish, and even I've had some kind of an interest in them for most of my life — mostly because of you, sir, but more for myself, this last year or so. And even people who hate thinking about them still relate to them, just in a negative way. You're right, Mrs. Roxanne, it _is _something more people will understand, even if it seems awfully shallow."

Megamind had listened to their discussion, and though he'd been prepared to reject the arguments at first, he found himself being swayed. "Well," he half-harrumphed, not wanting to seem like too easy a pushover, "I suppose you do have a point. Fashions and styles are all a matter of presentation, after all — and who better to lead the people of Earth into a new fashion millennium? Why, Minion, we could set the standards for good taste for the next thousand years, or more!"

Roxanne smiled crookedly and gave a little snort as she folded her arms and raked her husband from head to toe with one eye. "Not looking like _that _you won't," she opined, meaning the way he was all but covered with spots and streaks and smudges of dirt and oil and soot and the other inevitable filth of working in the shop, not to mention the assorted stains and scorch marks on his coveralls, which Minion had _finally _convinced him were more appropriate to such dirty work than his leather hero garb.

"C'mon," she suggested, finding a reasonably clean spot on one of his sleeves to nab him by. "Let's go get you cleaned up and presentable again and me into some comfortable clothes, and then I'm taking us all out to dinner to celebrate."

"Great!" Minion enthused, starting his climb down from the big bot. "With all the weird hours we've been keeping this last week, I gave up on trying to plan any big meals, especially after Madeleine had a hissy fit when we missed supper three nights running."

"That's what I figured. So I've already called Wayne and told him to keep an eye on things for tonight. I know that's really your job, sweetie," she told Megamind in an apologetic tone, just in case he took offense over her usurping his prerogative. "But I hoped you wouldn't mind, I've already made reservations at your favorite restaurant."

"Dave and Buster's?" he asked excitedly. "I didn't know they took reservations!"

She grinned. Some people might think it strange that the city's former supervillain loved a restaurant that was a more grown up version of Chuck E. Cheese's, but it didn't surprise her at all, not even after she'd discovered that back in their villain days, the two aliens occasionally went there using disguise watches. Their lives had had so little of anything that could be called normal, and Megamind in particular had keenly felt the loss of ordinary childhood joys. It hadn't been just his species' long adolescence that had caused his rather juvenile behavior; part of it had been the damage that came whenever a child is thrust too soon into the world of adults. That now, when it was his "family" going out to eat, he should prefer a place that along with good food and drink offered such things as a wide array of games and entertainment and other means of having fun...

Roxanne knew that some people thought she should disapprove, but she couldn't. After all, plenty of other adults indulged in the things the restaurant had to offer, and frankly, she considered it innocent and harmless and something her husband needed every now and then, both to let go of being a responsible hero for a little while, and to heal that aching space inside him that was still hurting from having had his childhood so rudely stolen from him. And if she was going to be honest with herself, every once in a while, she needed this, too.

"They normally don't," she confirmed as they headed for the elevator to the living quarters, "but after the last time we went there, the manager asked if I could give him a head's up the next time we wanted to come. Frank enjoys having us there, hon, but things got a little out of hand when you and Minion got into your Pump It Up competition and Frank's Midway area got jammed with people trying to watch. He just wants to be sure he has better crowd control this time."

"That was a lot of fun!" Minion said, remembering the incident a few months ago, when he and his partner had gotten carried away playing a competitive dancing game. The fish knew he was absolutely awful compared to his lithe blue friend, but they'd both been having so much fun, they hadn't cared, even when they'd attracted a crowd of amused bystanders. He then remembered something else. "Oh, sir, I heard that they put in some new games a few weeks ago, we _have _to check them out!"

"Yes, we should," Megamind agreed most enthusiastically. "But first, I want to try that Super Trivia one that you two wouldn't play with me last time..."

"With your brain and memory?" Roxanne snorted. "Only if it's the whole restaurant versus just you, and we get to cheat. _I _want to try one of their simulator games, see if their fake environments are even even one millionth as good as what Minion whipped up for us up in the hangar. But, remember—"

"—no simulated Space Invaders!" they all declared in unison, then burst into laughter.

The brainbots around the garage and shop areas heard the sounds of their merriment and came to investigate, hoping that there might be playtime in the offing. Minion, not needing as much in the way of clean-up or clothes changing as his human friends, decided to indulge the bots for a bit by tossing a few of the older tools he'd been collecting to put away, letting the bots chase after them. And for a time, the old, once-abandoned power station rang not with the noise of pounding electrical turbines or shrieking power tools or the raucous banging of heavy metal of several different kinds, but instead with the myriad sounds of happiness.

_Finis_


End file.
